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And man, doesn’t that feel like an ominous thing to type in the title of the post.

I’m in a vaguely half-asleep state this morning, largely because I started reading Seanan McGuire’s Rosemary and Rue just before going to bed last night and it’s one of those books where the temptation to read just one more chapter is terribly, terribly strong. 

Were I a less lazy blogger there would be a whole post here about yesterday’s adventure to Pulp Fiction, whereupon my plan to buy just one or two books quickly fell apart. Fortunately, I am a lazy blogger today. That’s what Sunday’s a for.

Today there is writing. And write-club. And bugging the inimitable Ben Francisco about co-writing a YA novel, ’cause there are some writerly shenanigans that work better when they’re shared with other people.

Man, I’ve been all over the place for the last week. Good stuff happened and bad stuff happened and my emotional state bounced around like one of those 20-cent rubber crazy balls you used buy from the machines out the front of the grocery store, but there was rarely a moment where stuff happened all on its own and demanded no real engagement on my part. Fortunately the last three or four days have trended towards the good rather than the bad, but I suspect any seven day period that starts with your parents ringing from the other side of the world and saying “we were almost killed in a car crash” is going to struggle to come out ahead on points.

Still, among the cool stuff:

- Doing edits and contracts for my short story, L’esprit de L’escalier, which will be coming up at Apex Magazine in the future. Astute readers may put two-and-two together and realise this was the source of much post-acceptance dancing two weeks back.

- Kicked off a whole new round of snoopy dancing, for it appears that I’ve sold a third story for the year. Once again I err on the side of vagueness until details firm up, but suffice to say that this one is rated pretty damn high on the awesomesauce scale.

- Had the yearly rejection count climb to a tantalising 19 rejections, which has spurred me to get back into the wordmines and get some new stories done.

- Picked up the inimitable Ben Francisco from the airport, whereupon there was nattering about writing and the eating of cassoulet and the planning of literary hi-jinx in the lead-up to the con.

In other news I’m still prodding my brain and saying “yo, you ready to acknowledge that there’s a book with our name on it coming out next week” and the brain continues to respond with a surly growl and a denial. I suspect I’m saving my “ZOMG…BOOK!” type squee until there’s a copy in my hands, whereupon nearby dogs will probably register my joy. I also have to figure out what I’m going to read in my reading slot at the con (logically it should be Bleed, but there’s always something a tad iffy about me reading Aster’s interior monologue); I was tempted to go with the aforementioned L’esprit de L’escalier, but then I realised I had no idea how to pronounce the title without mangling the French and thus it was shelved for another time.
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Current Writing Metrics
Consecutive Days Writing (500+ words): 1
New Short Stories Sent Into the Wild: 9/30
Rejections in 2010: 19/100
Black Candy Word Count (Finish Date: 31st August )

Yesterday started out okay with the job interview. Then it kind of downgraded a bit. Then the following happened and it downgraded a lot.

On The Sudden Discover that Your Parents Live their Retirement in the Same Way Most People Live their Early Twenties
A Play in One Act

Peter is at home, working on a few things after going to an interview. His parents are overseas. They’ve been taunting him with postcards from Vienna, because Peter has this thing for Vienna after watching The Third Man and Before Sunrise too many times. Peter’s Parent’s are classy like that. They send him pictures of Viennese food. They’re not actually in Vienna anymore, because old-fashioned postal systems aren’t as instant as e-mail. They’re meant to be coming home soon. The phone rings a few times. Peter rolls off the couch and answers it.

Peter’s Dad calling from distant Turkey: Hello?
Peter: Hello?
Peter’s Dad calling from distant Turkey: Hello?
Peter: Yeah, hello?
Peter’s Dad calling from distant Turkey: Hello?
Peter: I think there’s a delay. Count to five before you answer.
Peter’s Dad calling from distant Turkey: Hello.
There is counting to five.
Peter: Hello. How’s things? Count to five before you answer.
Peter’s Dad calling from distant Turkey: Let me tell you upfront we’re both fine *now* and there’s nothing to worry about…
Peter blinks a few time, processing that. He doesn’t really count to five, but that doesn’t seem to matter.
Peter: Yeah, this is not going to end well.
And lo, Peter was correct, for his parents had travelled off to distant Turkey and suffered a great calamity that shouldn’t be spoken of in any great detail. Peter feels somewhat lucky that he still has parents at this point, especially since they repeat the phrase “we’re both fine” with the kind of repetition that suggests they might not have been. Peter listens to the whole story and counts to five.
Peter: So you’re both fine.
Peter’s Dad calling from distant Turkey: Mostly fine. There are bruises.
Peter counts to five. He frets about how many details he would have left out if he was telling this story. He dislikes the use of the word Mostly.
Peter: And you’re still flying home tomorrow?
Peter’s Dad calling from distant Turkey: Yes.
Peter: Good.
Peter counts to five. Peter’s Dad calling from distant Turkey counts to five.
Peter: You know, somehow I always thought this conversation would be the opposite way around.
Peter: Also, neither of you are leaving the country EVER AGAIN.
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Current Writing Metrics
Consecutive Days Writing (500+ words): 1
New Short Stories Sent Into the Wild: 9/30
Rejections in 2010: 18/100
Black Candy Word Count (Finish Date: 31st August)

And so we have hit the slice of my calendar marked “The Cliffs of Insanity.”  For the next two weeks my days are packed – there are meetings to go to, there are house-cleanings prior to the arrival of guests, there are trips to the airport, and through a variety of circumstances there are now job interviews to attend.

I generally don’t talk about being unemployed online because a) it’s a downer and no-one needs to hear me whinging; and b) because the spam-bots come a-calling as soon as you say the word “unemployed” in an effort to convince you that you too can make thousands of dollars for a big company if you only you send them one…little…e-mail. Besides which, there’s only so many body-shots your ego can take, and when you’re skill-set largely covers “writing” and “reading” and “saying semi-intelligent things about a select sampling of the Gothic literary movement” your ego takes a battering in the current job market.

Tomorrow I’ve got an meeting for a job I rather want, though. ‘Tis a rare feeling to actually look forward to the interview.
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Current Writing Metrics
Consecutive Days Writing (500+ words): 9
New Short Stories Sent Into the Wild: 9/30
Rejections in 2010: 16/100
Black Candy Word Count (Finish Date: 31st August)
 <- Not accurate, but I’m in a hurry, so this will be updated later.

The dreaded paperbaghat is one of my many bad habits; I seriously end up wearing the damn things for a half-hour every time I leave one laying around the house, largely because it’s the only way I remember to throw them out. It’s one of those things that you can do when you live alone. Or that you end up doing when you live alone. I’m not sure which is the chicken and which is the egg in this situation.

In any case, most days I remember to take the dreaded paperbaghat off and depositing it in the bin *before* I answer the door.

Unlike, say, today when I forget I was wearing the dreaded paperbaghat and answered the door to chat with the nice missionary types who were trying to convince me that I should fear the forthcoming apocalypse or something.

-facepalm-

Stupid paperbaghat.

1) There’s is nothing quite so pleasant as heading out to one of your favorite bookstores on a rainy night and having someone read to you, but it’s doubly awesome when the topic du-jour is the Art of the Reading. The irony is that this totally wasn’t my idea – my sister e-mailed a few days back and asked if I’d be interested, and I was all “sick now, whatever, yeah? Put me down as a yes and leave me alone.” And so I was put down for a yes and Tuesday night rolled around and after I remembered I needed to be somewhere at somewhen there was much confused flailing and wondering what the hell I’d gotten into and then…then…then there was a pleasant night of awesomeness. And Nando’s chicken for afters, ’cause nothing says “pleasant night of literary discussion” like following things up with fast food.

2) I’m finally starting to find my routine again after nearly two weeks of being knocked about by allergies and the flu. The Spokesbear is pleased, although that may have more to do with the fact that my first resposne to bad news ceases to be curling up in ball and whimpering pitiously. The Spokebear has no pity.

3) Due to the pharmaceutical-induced cold-and-flu insomnia I happened to be up late enough to see episodes of Brad Garrett’s dire post-Everybody-Loves-Raymond sitcom, ‘Til Death. And it’s truly dire, not least of which because it’s falling back on the increasingly familiar trope of portraying married men as perpetual adolescents who need to be mothered by their wives. This shit makes me mad. Throwing stuff at the TV mad angry, actually. There is a rant brewing in the back of my brain about the need for male-oriented narratives that find a response to the rise of feminism beyond “act like children”, but ranting with lingering flu-brain is not the best idea.

4) Every time I use du jour in a blog post, I keep thinking about this scene from Josie in the Pussycats and giggling. If you haven’t seen the Josie and the Pussycat’s movie, you really should. It’s awesome. And Du Jour means crash positions!

This morning I woke up in the pre-dawn hours to hie myself over to the airport and pick up the globetrotting pair of friends whose house I’ve been living at for the last month. They’re now safely ensconced in their house and I am, officially, FREE OF THE DAMN CAT. Unfortunate news for those of you who’ve enjoyed the cat-posts for the last few weeks, but not a moment too soon for me – I ran out of antihistamines five days ago and decided against restocking under the hopes that I may have acclimatised to the cats presence. Turns out I hadn’t, so much of the last week was spent flaked out on the couch with a running nose, eyes so red you’d think they were bleeding, and a severe headache that defied the raw power of codeine.

Some things that happened while I was away

1. I was the victim of a Drive-Byover on Angela Slatter’s blog.

2. I stopped writing (this gets rectified today). I did edit, though. The first chapter of the novel almost looks like a first chapter now.

3. Jason Fischer built himself a website and announced the opening of submissions for the “SF Horror” issue of Midnight Echo he’s co-editing with David Conyers.

4. The Cat found itself a supply of wet paint to roll in. I’m really, really happy this idiot feline isn’t my problem anymore.

5. Someone pointed out that the Scott Pilgrim movie is going to hit Australia in less than two weeks, and I geeked out like a very geeky thing indeed.

And now I’m off to unpack my house-sitting replies, rock out to Placebo CD’s,  and then get some work done.
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Current Writing Metrics
Consecutive Days Writing (500+ words): 0
New Short Stories Sent Into the Wild: 9/30
Rejections in 2010: 14/100
Black Candy Word Count (Finish Date: 31st August)

Part the first

The Cat: Feed Me!
Peter: There’s food in your bowl.
The Cat: FEED ME!
Peter: There’s food in your bowl. I just put it there.
The Cat: FEED MEEEEEEE!
Peter: For fucks sake.
Peter picks up the cat, puts it next to the bowl.
The Cat: FEEEEED M–
The Cat notices the presence of food.
The Cat: Oh, right.
Peter: You’re an idiot, you know that?
The Cat, speaking with its mouth full: FEED ME!
Peter: …
Peter: Ten days to go.

Part the Two

Peter hears a comotion outside and goes to look. Finds The Cat engaged in deadly war with a dragonfly.
The Cat: Is deadly beast! I save you!
Peter: Whatever floats your boat, cat, just don’t bring it in and eat it on my feet.
The Cat: Die! Die! Die!
The Cat whacks the dragonfly with its paw over and over. The dragonfly waits this out and flies towards the fence.
The Cat: Noooooo.
The Cat chases the dragonfly. Peter shakes his head.
Peter: This will not end well.
The Cat runs headfirst into the fenceline. The Dragonfly flees accross the road, laughing to itself.
The Cat: What? Who put that there?
Peter shakes his head.
Peter: Cat, please be aware that I do not like you enough to have you bleed in my car should you need to go to the vet..
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Current Writing Metrics
Consecutive Days Writing (500+ words): 2
New Short Stories Sent Into the Wild: 9/30
Rejections in 2010: 12/100
Black Candy Word Count (Finish Date: 31st August)
 

Right now my parents are on their way to Turkey. Or they’ve already arrived in Turkey. Being unfamiliar with the vagaries of international travel and timezones, I largely just process such things in terms of “in the country” and “out of the country” and yesterday the parental unites transferred from one of these states to the other.

I, on the other hand, am having one of those days when I’m dissatisfied with everything. I suspect it may have something to do with starting my taxes yesterday. There’s nothing quite so sobering as looking at your yearly income and thinking “well, that explains why I’m so angry these days.”

Today I wish to blog about oh-so-many things, but my brain is tired and poor Fritz the laptop isn’t handling the internets well at the moment, for he is updating Windows right now and the internet in the house-sitting house is capped at slow speeds, and poor Fritz is weak in the RAM and lumped with the worlds worst operating system to boot. Were I smart I’d go work with pen and paper for a while, but being in possession of a penlike object could prove fatal for The Cat* when he attempts to jump on me.

And so I dance to David Bowie, and I update the blog, and I remind Fritz that I still love him for all his deficiencies because he has given me that most priceless of gifts: the ability to write on the couch, and in bed, and in other people’s houses where the computers are new and scary and save word files in odd formats that never open when I get home.

And Fritz is okay with that, as long as I protect him from the Cat. And together we sing the chorus to Life on Mars? while I brainstorm story ideas. 

*who I am now convinced is part rodent, for he has raided the garbage and thrown the contents across the kitchen. And he chews everything, including Fritz the Laptop and the power cord of every electronic device in the house. He seems shocked when I object to all this.