Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Human Seedlings

1300 words on the new short this morning. I'd like to write more, but something in it is making me restless, and I wonder if I should switch to some reading/critting. I worked most of the story out in my head earlier at the gym, listening to the same music that begat "Parasite" and "Lisse," although this story is as different as those are from each other, and spawned from a brief round of quests in some WoW village that I can't even remember, where this screenshot was taken.



How can one not write a story about that? But this story isn't quite turning out the way I'd hoped - I'm not sure if that' s good or bad. Either way, it's nice to have something new after the recent string of rejections. As far as those, I've made some revisions, sent most of them out again, and am still mulling over possible "Harvester" edits, and am hitting a dead end. Hopefully something will reveal itself soon.

I played my first few battlegrounds matches in the last few days on WoW - and am dreadfully terrible. I strongly suspected I would be, but considering my decency on the Xbox, specifically with Halo, it's humbling to see how truly bad I am at WoW, especially on my rogue Nanane, as rogues are a complex and subtle class. I want to get better, but I don't have nearly as much fun with Nanane as my priest Beris, who I'm leveling up with one of John's character's, and a character of his friend's DJ's. Speaking of John & DJ, they have a WoW blog where they discuss their arena matches. It's funny, and not surprising, how many people in the SFF world play this game. About time I caved in.

Of course now, I have to manage my time between the Xbox game Dante's Inferno (which has also influenced the new short, full of characters like a writhing Cleopatra, penitent Pontius Pilate, helpful Virgil, and endless demons) and WoW. The decisions to make.

I also just finished the new Sirenia Digest, #61, I believe, of Caitlyn R. Kiernan's. Any Kiernan fan should immediately subscribe - it's worth every penny. I loved the story "-30-." Loved it. It's that fulfilling kind of read that I look for in every short: beautiful writing, meaningful, well-rounded, and leaves the reader with a little ache from its honesty.

Wednesday good news - I'm now an Assistant Editor at Lightspeed Magazine! It's been a quick year since LS has opened; a quick, unbelievably rewarding year.

Next up, I need to read some good novels. So many shorts, not enough novels.