The Game of Publishing

So this blog is becoming more and more like a once-a-week affair. Hopefully that will be changing soon, but I thought I'd pop in before I left for work (first day taking calls!) to make a comment.

Saturday represented the end of the potential deadline for Wierd Tales to get back to me regarding any potential interest in Children of Llothora. Since I've recieved no correspondance from them whatsover, I am considering this a rejection for the story. Unfortunate, but hey, not many people get published at their first try. I am disappointed because the magazine's submission guidelines make a point of stating that they always send a formal rejection notice (which I haven't received). I would have at least liked to have known what it was they didn't like so I could send future stories more up their alley to them, but oh well.

(On a side, note, it is occuring to me that I should make an attempt to contact them to see what's going on; since I haven't gotten anything at all, there exists the potential for a mix-up in the mail... I could at least maybe find out WHY it wasn't accepted.)

But that's the game. As I write this, I have four other publications' websites open, and a page with links to many others. All it takes now is to decide which one I want to submit to next (or which several if they're ok with multiple submissions). That's what happens when you submit unsolicited work to a company. If they don't like it you try again, and again, with that piece and another.

I've been worrying so much about work and money and Lex (VERY cranky after his last two vaccine shots) that I haven't gotten much work done. It's hard going from the peaceful, quiet atmosphere of the jury assembly area back to working at home, where Lex, if nothing else, is a constant source of distraction and worry.

Ah well. Need to finish getting ready.

End of Demented Rambling.

I'm Back!

I've taken a "few" days off from my blog recently. Between Lex's birthday party this past weekend (which was a great success) and starting my training classes at Safelite, I've just felt really busy.

As I said, the birthday party went really well. We had our whole family of five, both my parents, Lisa's mother and grandmother, and my one of my aunts & uncles at the party. Our theme was "mini" for this party. Our menu consisted of mini-cheeseburgers with "mixi-doodle sauce" (courtesy of Michael Chiarello), mini-bagel pizzas, fruit bowls, and an awesome cheese tray provided by my parents, plus a variety of those 8 oz cans of soda, also provided by my parents. We only furnished little cocktail plates, napkins, and forks, as well as plastic shot glasses for drinks. My father and uncle cheated, choosing to load a regular-sized plate rather than stick with the theme, but they both loved the food so I'll forvie them. My father picked up this great little device to grill 9 mini-burgers at one time, and it was fantastic. Made fixing 18 mini-burgers on the grill really easy, because we could flip 9 of them at one time. I'd recommend it by brand name, but all the packaging was gone.

Lex got a huge amount of "loot". We gave him a singing mailbox (no, I'm sure we won't regret giving him a toy that makes the noise), plus an alligator car, tugboat bath toy, and a new outfit. My parents gave him a car buggy that we push, and a Winnie the Poo spinner. Lisa's family gave him a singing train with alphabet parts, plus a lot of clothes. My aunt and uncle gave him a fantastic gift... Baby Mozart from the Baby Einstein videos, plus 2 Baby Einstein CDs. These are great because they calm him down almost IMMEDIATELY when he's screaming, saving our frayed nerves from further damage.

Took the kids to be dropped off at the other house after that. I'll leave that with only one other statement... I don't begrudge the other biological parent from wanting time with them... but I hate what this split Summer stuff does to Lisa.

Safelite is going well. I seem to be retaining all the information they're throwing at me, but we'll see how well that transfers to the call center when I'm let out on the floor. By an odd coincidence, my neighbor across the street just started there as well. He was in the training class before mine, so he's still in the "training" section taking calls.

Lisa and I have watched John Carpenter's "Apocalypse Trilogy" now, consisting of "The Thing", "Prince of Darkness", and "In the Mouth of Madness". I enjoyed all three movies, and I'm glad to have finally gotten to see all the movies.

We have a stray cat hanging around our house. He (we think its a "he") was very scrawny and emaciated to begin with, but we've been leaving food for "him" and he's started to fill out to a more healthy size. We're hoping eventually to adopt him, but it's slow-going. He still hasn't built up much trust for us, though he is getting better. If we do take him in, we're going to name him based on puns that link back to our other cat, Bella. If "he" really is a "he" we're going to name him Lugosi (Lugi for short). A girl will be named "Donna". Points if you get both jokes.

Ok. I'm out for the night.

End of Demented Rambling.

Writing Frustrations

Sometimes it is very frustrating.

As much as I HATE prewriting, I made a very strong effort to outline "Caverns of Baltatharon". I created a nice, detailed outline... except in one section.

Go figure, this section happens to be the point where I'm at in the story now.

Also go figure, I can't for the life of me figure out what to put into this section.

I mean, I know what leads up to it, I know what comes after it... but the content inside of it?

Nuh-uh.

(I've just written 4 "paragraphs" that are each only one sentance long... I think I just "broke" the English language. Strunk & White are coming to my house right now with an Uzi.)

It almost makes me want to scrap the project... but it has its inspirations with "Shadow Over Innsmouth", my favorite Lovecraft story, and I don't want to abandon that. It's irrational, but there it is. It really has very little in common with Lovecraft's fantastic tale, other than an amphibious species that might possibly be mating with humans... but I still don't want to get rid of it.

I ran into this with "Children of Llothora" when I was writing that story, but I simply thought that the section was out of place and would make the reader yawn and stop reading. Here... I just don't know what to put down. I have these scenes I like of underwater cities, a sacrifice, and this is where the narrator encounters the caverns mentioned in the title... but I just don't have a clear road map on how to navigate this section. I've been trying to figure it out for over a week, and my brain just IS NOT cooperating!

Feh. Never gonna get through it if I'm just kvetching to my blog. Back to work!

End of Demented Rambling.

Stupid Computer!

So I decided to spare Lisa my music video playlist on Yahoo... she doesn't share my love of Rage Against the Machine... or Avenged Sevenfold... Rammstein... Slipknot... come to think of it, we may only share tastes in "Pop" music. Plus, I'd had my old headset out to listen to information on the Palm Pre (no lectures about how I can't afford it... I'm allowed to want things I can't afford), so I figured I'd get some use of them.

Then I figured that I'd go ahead and get some writing in today while listening to my music with my headphones... then I remembered that my files are on a USB flash drive... which isn't so bad, except that my desktop only has one USB port in the front, and my headset was occupying it. So I unplugged the headset (yes, I was courteous and paused the music) and pulled the tower out to plug it into one of the 4 USB ports in the back. This stretched the power cord too far, making it come loose, and thus quitting the power on me.

Stupid computer.

I have it up and working now, but I'm still getting my websites & applications back up and running. Just popped in to vent for a minute.

End of Demented Rambing.

The Dangers of Wearing Your Helmet Too Tight!

You may end up looking like this!

Before the kids left on Friday we took them for one last bike ride, and gave Lex his first ride in the wagon!

Cassandra decided to be a goof for this picture... I warned her I'd show it to people... oh well, her choice!

They had a lot of fun, though Cassandra is still having trouble going uphill. She needs to work on developing muscles in her legs to push through those difficult spots. She's getting better though. Caleb did great, though he still needs some reminders to stand up when the going gets tough. No need for more leg muscles for him though, he peddled like a champ! Just a little more work on the concept of using the breaks, not his feet, to slow down, and he'll be ready to get those training wheels off! Lex loves going for walks, and he loved the wagon ride as well! We tucked a bottle of Gatorade in the front of the wagon in case anyone got thirsty... it must have slid backwards at some point, because I turned around and there was Lex trying to get it open! Little bugger loves Gatorade (and why not, it has a ton of sugar)!

I was going to post more pictures of the bike ride/wagon ride on here, but I can't figure out a way to do it that doesn't involve shoving all of them at the top of the blog. Since it's very hard to comment on them... well, I'm just not going to do it!

End of Demented Rambling.

Is the Week Over Yet?

No?

Crap.

My grandfather passed away at 12:30 Monday morning (not sure if that is the exact time or an approximate, but it's close enough). We'd been expecting it, so it wasn't a terrible shock or anything. Actually, we'd been expecting it for over a year now, so we've had some time to mentally prepare for it. Probably won't mean jack as far as the grieving process is concerned, but it helps at least in the short term.

I spent the first part of this week playing "Dead Space", an excellent game I rented after my friend Tom showed it to me. It was due back Wednesday, and I wanted to make certain I'd finished it by then, so I've been playing quite a bit of it. And if your wondering, I did finish it. And now I want a sequal.

I also got my schedule set up with Safelite Auto Glass, I'll start orientation on the 20th, so just in time to have Lex's birthday party without any worries of work intruding. Yay!

We went to the viewing today. It was a pleasant gathering, as such things go. Lex loved it... nice open room where he could be the star attraction by running around. Lisa and I are exhausted after running around all evening after him though.

I'd write more, but frankly I'm pooped.

I've got a couple of things I want to post on here roleplaying-wise, but I'm not ready to do so at this moment... and thinking go slowly right now.

End of Demented Rambling.

Happy 4th of July... and other stuff.

Perhaps I'm a day late in saying this, but I hope everyone had a happy 4th of July! Hooray for American Independance!

Ordinarily we go to the City of Hilliard parade, but we didn't think we were going to have the kids, and figured Lex wouldn't appreciate the loud noises of the parades. Instead we scheduled for our friends Tom and Angie to come over and have a little 4th of July party, which then extended to including Angie's mother Artie (hope I'm spelling that right), and Lisa's mother and grandmother (the Marys).

The Marys came over Friday night to avoid the holiday traffic. Tom, Angie, Evie (Tom & Angie's 9-week old baby) and Arite got here somewhere between 1:30 PM and 2:00. They brought pita chips, hummus, and beer (mmm... beer). Well, and themselves of course. Can't forget that. The menu included grilled pizza with kielbasa, red & yellow bell peppers, fontina cheese, and a ricotta cheese mixture. We also had grilled corn, some of Mary's (or "Grams" as the kids call her) potato salad, some two-bite brownies and some angel food cake with red, white, and blue food colored icing (the deserts were store-bought).

The party was great fun. Great food, great company. Tom and I had an "epic" golf game on the Wii. It ended in a tie, +16 for both of us (yeah, we sucked... what can I say; golf apparently isn't our game). Evie was adorable, and is apparently capable of sleeping through hurricanes, because even at our loudest she didn't stir at all. Lex tried to steal the show, and did a pretty good job of it!

After the party I took the kids out for some fun with sparklers, while Lisa stayed in with a sleeping Lex and rested her abused feet. She was exhausted beyond belief! Caleb and Cassandra got to see some fireworks in the distance while they played with the sparklers. Then, of course, bed.

Today we went to the Montgomery Family Reunion, a reunion for my mother's side of the family. The family tree gets a bit... er, um... "tangled" together down that branch. See, my grandfather married my grandmother... that much should be taken as a given. Well, his brother married my grandmother's sister... which only sounds wrong if you don't take the time to explain why our family tree isn't just a trunk. The Montgomery's are my grandmother's family line.

Anyway, I've avoided going for a few years in a row now. When you get down to my generation the family ties are... well, let's just say that if our family ties were shoe laces, some poor sap would be tripping constantly. We don't really know each other (ok, the more accurate statement would be "we don't know each other, period"). So I really don't feel much of a need to go, other than to make my mother happy (sorry, Mom). Honestly, if it hadn't been an opportunity to let my aunts and uncles see the kids, I wouldn't have gone. But hey, we went, it wasn't too bad this year; I didn't get that "Who are you, and why do you know my name?" feeling I normally get. And my Aunts and Uncles got to see Lex walk a bit, plus the kids got to look at pictures of my Aunt Lois & Uncle John's family (including my cousin John, his wife Becky, and their kids Maddie & Cassie) trip to Disney World.

We got home, and Lex was exhausted. I ended up laying him down next to me in bed and we took a nice, long, nap. Then a quick trip to the store to pick up some stuff for dinner (Spaghetti, meatballs, garlic bread and peas). Now the family is sitting odwn watching The Tales of Despereaux, an animated book based on a children's story. We have the book for Cassandra, thought she'd want to read it more if she saw the movie first. So far it's enjoyable.

That's all for now. I need to get some more writing done, but I've been kind of been busy with stuff like the 4th of July party and Lex's birthday arty... which is only 2 weeks away (AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!). I'll get more down soon.

End of Demented Rambling.

So Tired...

Let me throw a scenario out for you folks reading this out there in internet-land.

Imagine if you will, a house with an 11 month-old baby. Imagine that this sweet baby falls asleep around 8:00 in the evening.

Fast forward to approximately midnight, when this baby's parents have decided that they can no longer keep their eyes open, and must go to bed. As they finish picking up downstairs the unthinkable happens.

The sweet baby wakes up.

He's still sweet. Adorable, even. But he is also well-rested, and thus at an advantage against his weary parents. Desperate to play on the floor where he can walk around and get into all sorts of trouble, the sweet baby will no longer accept attempts to cuddle him back to sleep. With supreme effort, the sweet baby wriggles his way free of his parents' grasps and makes his break for freedom! Unable to compete with the boundless energy of youth, the groggy parents accept their doomed fate and resolve to continue staying up past the point where any sane person would have turned in, college students excepted.

The sweet baby plays hard, until his frantic efforts of running around in circles finally exhausts him. At 2:00 AM the exhausted parents are finally able to lay him down in his crib, where he slumbers...

Until 7:00 AM when he is hungry.

The scene I have painted above is not fiction. You have not entered The Twilight Zone. It is real.

I'm am so goddamn tired, it isn't even funny. Looks like I'm running off of energy drinks today!

End of Demented Rambling.