Out of excuses

I have not accomplished much in the past week. Sure, I organized things, went through paperwork, cleaned my house (somewhat), and had a lovely visit with an aunt and uncle I hadn’t seen since 1985. 🙂 But I haven’t done any writing since the writing workshop I went to in Oregon ended over a week ago. I haven’t done much non-writing-but-writing-related stuff either, which is what I normally do when I’m procrastinating about writing (since that way I can convince myself I’m being productive even though I secretly know I’m procrastinating). My initial excuse was that I needed a break after a week of class, but that only made sense for a few days. Now I’m totally out of excuses – and my deadlines are even closer! Ack!!!

In spite of my poor work ethic for the past week, I actually think the break was good for me. I realized a while back that I need to start planning downtime, but I hadn’t actually done that yet. Instead I’d spend more time working than I should have, and I think I ended up being less productive than if I’d had more mental breaks where I did things like read, or pull weeds, or work on teaching Rosie and Jasper more tricks. So while I have painted myself into a corner and have to focus to meet my looming deadlines, I think my bout of laziness may actually have been more constructive than it might appear. Plus my garage is much cleaner than it would have been if I’d spent the past week writing. 🙂 I just need to figure out a good way to balance all the work I want to do while giving myself breaks.

I have a few new stories coming out in May. “The Other Side of the Portal,” my first ever dinosaur story, is in A Fistful of Dinosaurs, an anthology put together by Chuck Anderson and Jim LeMay of Mad Cow Press. They put together a fun video trailer about the book. My story is set in tunnels underneath London – yes, London. 🙂 I wrote about a dinosaur named Latenivenatrix, which is considered to have been one of the most intelligent – if not the most – dinosaurs.

From “Jurassic Park” to “Godzilla,” from “The Land That Time Forgot” to “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” dinosaurs have a rich history of inspiring the idea of the creatures of the past, and those living in our society. The stories in A Fistful of Dinosaurs will continue that tradition. We love dinosaurs because they are big, we love them when they are terrifying, we love them because they are dangerous, because they destroy houses and towns, because of the reality that they were actually here, and we love them when they are cute. We love the T-Rex, we love the Triceratops. We just love dinosaurs.

“Twin Wishes,” a story I sold at the 2016 anthology workshop I went to in Lincoln City, Oregon, will be in Fiction River: Wishes, an anthology edited by Rebecca Moesta.

Forget the old adage that cautions against wishing. The sixteen stories in this latest Fiction River contain just the right amount of heart, magic, pathos, and even hope. From a daughter hoping to save her father with a crash-course in wishery to an unfortunate victim at the wrong end of someone else’s wish, these stories show teens trying to wish away their problems—with often unexpected results. But no matter the dilemma, this volume of Fiction River promises to lift your spirits and remind you just how much magic the universe offers.

I have a story in one more anthology as well, but finishing the cover is one of my many deadlines, so I’ll post about that story once the cover is ready to go. And once that’s done, I’ll move on to the next set of deadlines. 🙂

Home is where the dogs are

I’m back home after a long, grueling, and very fun week on the Oregon coast at the fantasy writing workshop taught by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. I learned a few things, caught up with some of my author friends – and made a few new ones, and started a few new novels. 🙂

I wasn’t actually supposed to start any more novels – I have too many on my list already! But writing short stories is a slippery slope for me…it’s far too easy for an idea to grow. At this point I know myself well enough that I expected this to happen, so I’m embracing the whole thing. I really like some of the new stories, so the only negative is that I have no idea when I’ll have time to get back to them because I have so many deadlines lined up. And, of course, putting the wrong dates for the workshop on my calendar over a year ago, and discovering this less than a week before class started (ack!) means I’m now playing catch-up on a few things. I should be back on track by this time next week.

This was the last workshop I’ll go to in Oregon – starting in the fall, these classes will begin being offered in Las Vegas. I will miss the ocean and staying at the Anchor Inn, which is by far the most unusual place I’ve ever stayed at. It was funny to realize that I’ve been attending the Oregon workshops for long enough to be able to recognize changes to the Anchor, like the kayaks that used to hang upside-down from one of the hallways are no longer there, and the spot where I parked my rental car back in 2011 is now part of a walled-off courtyard. Classes in Vegas just won’t be the same. 🙂

One of the ‘short stories’ (ha!) I started is a historical fantasy set in 79 A.D. It feels like it will either end up as a long short story, or a short novella – but it’s not a novel. Or at least I’m pretty sure it’s not… I’m thinking I might jam this one in my queue after I finish my looming deadlines, since it should be a lot faster to finish than a full novel. Plus I have the rest of the story in my mind now, and I really want to write it. Here’s a snippet.

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I felt the first tremor the morning of Consualia, the first of the four August harvest festivals. My half-sister Caelia and I sat on the stone steps leading up to our father’s home, sheltered from the heat of the midday sun by the branches of a lemon tree. We’d finished our chores for the day, and were braiding flowers into garlands to adorn our two mules for the celebration that would wind through the cobblestoned streets of Pompeii that evening. The occasional bee wandered by, buzzing as it inspected our blossoms, and then moving on.

I glanced over my shoulder at the higher of the two peaks of Vesuvius, which stood maybe five or six miles from us. Its massive form rose out from the earth like the god some people believed it to be, rising to around five thousand cubits high. It looked no different than on any other day: a mountain formed of charcoal and brown rock, with one giant peak almost twice as tall as the smaller, older one beside it. Swaths of chestnut, oak, and ilex trees wrapped around its lower stretches like a bright green blanket. A tiny wisp of smoke curled up from its tip.

Everyone else believed the small puffs of smoke Vesuvius spat out from time to time to be clouds. But I had been born with fire in my veins, and I knew what the mountain really was.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The best thing about coming home was, of course, seeing Rosie and Jasper! Jasper’s 8th birthday was on Saturday (or at least that’s the day we picked, since we really have no idea when he was actually born), so we celebrated on Sunday evening after I got home. Both dogs enjoyed their plates of vanilla ice cream. 🙂

Happy, muddy dogs.

Kicking off an interesting week…

I just realized that I’m going to Oregon for a writing class that starts THIS Saturday, not on the 21st!!!!! I’ve apparently had the wrong dates on my calendar for at least six months. Wow. And OMG. And ack!

This is the most exciting start to a week I’ve had in a very long time… 🙂 At least I finally got all my tax paperwork together, and may or may not have gotten it to my accountant in time.

It’s clearly going to be an interesting week… I’d planned on finishing three short stories before the workshop. Oops.

On the Jasper front, he had an MRI two weeks ago and his back looks great! He has some spondylosis, but we already knew about that, and our vets have said they don’t think it’s bothering him. We now know that his back pain isn’t due to anything wrong with his back, but it’s because he has hip dysplasia – which we only discovered this year. While that isn’t great, it’s a lot better than some of the other things we were testing for!!! He’s back on the hiking trail, and we’re avoiding trails with lots of rock steps, but he can go uphill on paths. Hooray!!!!!