I’ve spent the past week and a half editing stories for two anthologies. Today at work I found myself unable to keep from correcting someone’s document. That in itself is not unusual, but this was a temporary document for software engineers, where typos were irrelevant. Fortunately I had to go to a meeting, so I was able to stop myself. 🙂

One of the anthologies is the monster-themed collection I’m working on with DeAnna Knippling. I got through all my edits, and now have to review a few comments from DeAnna. The other is for the third volume in the anthology series A Procession of Faeries. My super awesome friend Lori helped with the edits, which was a ginormous help! I’m now fretting over colors for the cover while waiting to hear back from all the authors. The artwork was finalized last December, I think, so you’d think the whole thing would be ready to go – but no. 🙂 But at least you can’t say I don’t pay enough attention to details!

Speaking of details, last week I announced I have two new goals for every week: to learn something new, and to have one new, interesting experience. These are both excellent goals, but are much more stressful than I’d expected. Are the new things I’ve learned worthwhile, or merely mediocre? Have my new experiences been sufficiently interesting, or are they too mundane? Ack!

Whether or not I’ve learned and experienced sufficiently important and interesting things, I was mindful of my goals for the past week. Here’s my report.

Learnings

I’ve learned that tomatillos make little husks, and then the fruit grows inside of them. And you have to have at least two plants (or have neighbors with tomatillos plants) in order to have cross-pollination. Without pollination, you’ll end up with empty husks. Conveniently, I have two plants! Which is good because the whole concept of pollination hadn’t occurred to me. I even checked to be sure, and yes – there are tiny tomatillos growing inside of the husks. 🙂 Both plants are Rio Grande Verde tomatillos, which apparently make very large fruit. This variety can grow to be four feet tall, so I must have monster plants because at least one of them is already taller than me.

Experiences

For my week’s experience, I’m going to count a lunch I had with three friends at work on Friday. We’d planned a long lunch in advance, and walked along one of the trails in Boulder to the Rayback, a local restaurant which has food trucks, a bar, a kombucha bar, and even a coffee bar. (For the record, I had a glass of rosé.) This was a fun experience for several reasons: this is the first time I went to the Rayback with friends from work but not as a ‘work’ lunch; two of my friends had only met once, and they’d never met the third friend, so it was really fun to see them meet and get along so well; we got to walk on nice paths; and it was a long lunch, which of course was great. 🙂

I have a lot more editing to do… I need to go through DeAnna’s comments on the monster stories, and I have to review stories for two more anthologies. And, as always, I have a few short stories I need to write and submit soon. I’ve also finally started a non-fiction book on creating story bundles and anthologies that I’ve been planning on writing for the past year and a half. And then there’s that novel that’s almost done – really! But it’s going to stay in that state until I get these next few things out the door. At least Rosie and Jasper make sure I get out of the house and get some exercise!