Today was the first day of the rest of my life. Or, rather, it was the first day since leaving my job that I actually had the sort of “normal” day that I’ve expected, envisioned, planned for. As in: woke up at 5:30, went to yoga; did morning email and internettery; wrote a bit on project A (a short story with a Very Cool Collaborator); edited a chapter of project B (Demonhead); did some research for a freelance job; went for a nice walk up Buena Vista hill; talked with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) jaylake; did some reading, crit work, and more internettery; talked with markferrari; and now this and then bed. All unrushed, unhurried; all very satisfying. And, let me just say again: I wrote! It felt so satisfying, I cannot tell you. I have no idea if it was any good or not–but, I wrote! It’s been far too long. More tomorrow! Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.
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Last day in the office yesterday…it is still not really hitting me. I don’t think it will until I get *back* from Portland in a few weeks, and get up in the morning, and don’t go to work. I am very much looking forward to that feeling. Because right now, the feeling is more like: OMG it’s 5:00 and I haven’t even started packing, and I haven’t gotten the orchids into the sink, or taken the trash out, or even thought about dinner, or or or or…. But what I did do: I procured chains for the Witchmobile, and learned how to put them on. In fact I rather showed the man how to show me how to put them on, because he was so obviously doing it wrong. So I feel good about that. And now they’re in my trunk, and I hope I never have to look at them again. Because, annoying as it was to fiddle with them in the tire shop, I can easily see how very much more annoying it would be to fiddle with them in the dark-wet-cold-snowy-filthy-roadside when they become necessary. ____________ Dept. of Small Victories: I returned from my errands, hoping for a parking spot right out front, due to packing car at 6am tomorrow with many loads of stuff. No parking spot. So, magical thinking engaged, and I thought, If I drive the 4 blocks up to campus and get the rest of my office-stuff I could not carry home yesterday (that I was going to walk up and get today), then when I come back, there will be parking. So I did, and so there was: a car pulled out right out front just as I returned. Win!!! ______________ And, Oooh Oooh! Look what I found when I checked the mail!!! 
Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.
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Apparently, the thing to do at this juncture is to say, Ahem, it’s Nebula-nominating time, and, well, I’ve got a few things to draw your attention to… So, um, here they are: “Eastlick” –in Black Static, May 2009. I love this story. It’s not in the least autobiographical. Well, except for the setting, and the pre-teen emotions. And some details. But, other than that, nope, not at all. “By the Sea”–in the anthology Grants Pass. This uber-cool post-apocalyptic anthology is getting some Stoker attention, BTW…. Rolling Steel (collab with Jay Lake), Clarkesworld, April 2009. A collaboration with jaylake , and also a podcast. Do I need to say anything more? Okay, that’s surely plenty. Go forth and nom(inate). Or don’t. It’s all good. I’ll still like you.  ____________ In other news: I edited the first two chapters of Demonhead last night, and they actually did not suck. Of course, the beginnings of books never do, when you’re at the wide-open part of the parabola. So, I’m sure it will be horrible as I progress. But so far: not horrible. I might even do some more tonight… And jaylake has been working on Our Lady, and reports that it similarly does not suck. (Except for that inexplicable bit about the shoal beds.) So, yay! _____________ Day Jobbe, on the other hand, sucks quite a bit. But: four days left. I can do this… Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.
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“In the Beginnings,” a collaborative flash piece with jaylake , sold to Electric Velocipede, for publication some time next year. Woo hoo! Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.
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NICE day off. Oh all days should all be this way. Oh wait, they will be. Eventually. I got a chunk of the to-do list accomplished (although not the tire chains, grr), and some relaxing done, including even a proto-nap on the couch (and I am one who DOES NOT NAP)–but, most importantly, I finished my first draft of “Neither Love Nor Golden Spider Beetles” and sent it out to first readers. It hit very nearly exactly 3,000 words, which I had intended before I started…and that, dear readers, is because when I got to 2,400 words and didn’t know how it ended, I thought, Self, you have to bring this story in in 600 words. So I did. Can it really be that easy? Time will tell! My first first reader (jaylake ) says it’s good…waiting to hear from the rest. And now–(yay) dinner with the doctodds, and (boo hiss) back to work tomorrow. But–7 more days! Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.
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Wow, the costumes here! What a gorgeous con! jaylake and I sat in the corner of the bar last night for an hour or more, which had a big window overlooking a staircase leading down to registration and the pool. It looked like a crazed alternative-reality Victorian garden party. I cannot even begin to describe it… But the good news is that the setting led to a discussion this morning about steampunk in general and the story I’m currently writing in particular, and that in turn led to one of those gorgeous AHA! moments, and I now know what the story is and where it’s going. (I’m only 1,000 words into it, and luckily not *all* of them are going to have to be junked…) Alas, I have to go wander around in corset and boots and pearls and braids and velvet and lace and leather now, so I won’t likely get back to writing till Monday…but, the idea rests firmly in my head. Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.
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Broke 1,000 words on the new story, despite my tired brain’s best efforts to distract myself with Other Things. My reward shall be to go to Casa doctodd now and have them cook me a meal of great deliciousness, while I play with the cats. Not a bad deal, if I say so myself. All I have to do is get there. Yes, there is that. ________________ Thanks to all who have commented on my LJ this afternoon with the driving-vs.-flying (vs. the train) advice!! I am leaning hard towards driving, but feeling very sober and serious about the potential snow situation. So. Not yet decided–but I need to soon, yes. ________________ I’m so glad it’s Friday. Today wasn’t horrible at work, but it’s still hard, and I’m so done there, and there’s not much I can do about that. But I realized this morning that, what with all the upcoming travel, I had only four more days at work this month (three, now!). So, I can do that. Then there’s only November–and then free! Like an uncaged bird! Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.
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I’m writing again (yay!). My big plan of taking October off? Yeah, not so much. I think I was slowly going bonkers. Actually, the plan was more not to start anything big until after World Fantasy, and that’s still my intention. But last night, I resurrected an untitled collab short story that jaylake and I were working on before I dove deep into OUR LADY. I wrote 600 words on that and sent it back to him. (And I see he’s already written a piece and sent it back–darn him!) Darn him? Why? Well, because I have a *new* story I want to write… This one is only a title–well, and a first line, which came to me a little bit ago. (At this rate, it’ll be done sometime next spring!) The title: “Neither Love Nor Golden Spider Beetles.” The first line? Well, for that you will just have to wait. Now I’m going to see if I can find a few more lines, and thus end the evening feeling accomplished. Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.
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Excellent Editor jennifer_brozek has just announced the lineup of stories for Close Encounters of the Urban Kind: Alma Alexander – I Am Sorry for Talking So Rarely to Strangers
Erik Scott de Bie – Racing Lights
Richard Lee Byers – End of Life
Nate Crowder – Frames of Reference
Ivan Ewert – Waterheads
Robert Farnsworth – A Late Night Snack
Pete Kempshall – Dead Letter Drop
Carole Johnstone – The Invitation
Rosemary Jones – Two Out, Wendigo
Martin Livings – Lollo
Eric Lowther – It Came from the Backseat
Ramsey Lundock – Tea Cups & Saucers
Shannon Page – The Hippie Monster of Eel River
Joshua Palmatier – Mastihooba
Jennifer Pelland – Headlights
Rick Silva – Roadkill
Jeff Soesbe – Green Tears on Black Velvet
Eddy Webb – Gloomy Sunday Nice, very nice. Great titles, great company! Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.
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**I wrote this last night on my website-blog, went to post it, got an error message...went over to LJ to see if it had crossposted, and any of you who crosspost know what happened there...LJ was down for hours, completely...eventually, the post showed up on my website, but it's still not crossposting, so here, without further ado, I paste.**
October 1, 2009
Well, lookie there, another three months have gone by. And what have I done?
-Sold three stories (two of them collaborative) and an article.
-Attended WorldCon, Foolscap, a writing retreat, and the King Tut exhibit.
-Read my story "By the Sea" before a packed house at the Grants Pass anthology release.
-Finished editing NIGHTCRAFT MOTHER in preparation for market.
-Drafted most of OUR LADY OF THE ISLANDS.
Metrics:
-Wrote 115,566 words of new fiction in 78.25 writing hours.
{That's a total of 196,617 words of new fiction on the year; so, it was a good quarter for fresh writing, to be sure.}
-This includes: 107,766 on OUR LADY and the rest on various bits of other short pieces, mostly "Embers" and "The Hippie Monster of Eel River".
Other stuff:
-Quit my job (last day December 1....sigh)
-Quit my therapist
-Flew back and forth to Portland a few times
-Drove back and forth to Portland once
-Went to far too many oncology appointments (ANY oncology appointments are far too many)
-Saw two movies (one in theater, one on DVD)
-Attended two weddings, both fairly nontraditional, and therefore all the better for it
-Fed some cats
-Read some books (metrics and titles on these at year-end only)
Not bad. Much more to do. Onward!
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My short story “The Hippie Monster of Eel River” has been accepted for the Apex Book Company’s CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE URBAN KIND anthology. Yay! This gives me the opportunity to work once more with the lovely and talented editor jennifer_brozek, about which I am so pleased. And, this is a particularly interesting milestone for me personally, because jaylake also submitted a story to this anthology, and it was rejected. Now, neither he nor I generally post about rejections (in my case at least, it would be deadly boring, since it happens all the time…), but he insisted I make this one public. In his words: “You skunked me.” So, not a bad way to start the morning, I think. Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.
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“Embers,” a short story collaboratively written with jaylake, sold to Norilana Books for the anthology LACE AND BLADE 3, to appear Valentine’s Day 2010. Yay! Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.
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Blah blah blah 5,000 words on OUR LADY blah blah and 2,800 words on “The Hippie Monster of Eel River” and finished and sent to market blah blah laundry groceries orchids carwash other chores yoga blah blah.
Don’t you hate those boring update-posts that sound like every other update post?
Actually, funny thing: you know how I wrote the other day about all the avoidance-behavior I was doing, before that Great Big Massively Important Scene that was going to end the first act of OUR LADY? Well, heh. When I finally dove into it, it turned out to be like half a page long–the important stuff had already happened, and more important stuff was coming up next, but, that scene? Eh. Not so much.
Anyway, we’re well past it now.
And I have lots of ANTIPHON to read, so, that’s it for now! Hope everyone had a great weekend.
OH BOY my second to last Monday-at-work coming up…or, ooh, my last Monday, since the next one is Labor Day! Oooh!
Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.
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Another Full Lake today (yay!). But, you know how you do that thing, where you have a big scene coming up, and your day’s work starts with finishing off the last scene, and then there has to be a transition to get to the big scene, and you also have to check in with another character briefly, and then you get positioned for the big scene, and then you have like 300 words to go on your goal, and you’re tired, and it would be really better to dive in fresh tomorrow on the big scene? So you have the character sort of dither, and figure out where to spend the night, and think about all sorts of mundane bodily details, and the like? Yeah. That. ______________ But I don’t feel so bad. Not only did I write 2,500 words on OUR LADY, I also started a short story entitled “The Hippie Monster of Eel River.” And if that doesn’t make you want to read it, I don’t know what will. ______________ And now I am going to finish reading the ARC of Canticle (which jongibbs pointed out would be an excellent book title in and of itself) so that I can start reading the manuscript of Antiphon. I have the greatest friends. Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.
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So there was this morning’s sale. (Yay!!!) And as Jay mentioned, we cranked out another collab over the weekend. (He did most of the heavy lifting on that one, but my hand is in it, I promise.) And I have been working like crazy on OUR LADY OF THE ISLANDS–another 1,500 words today, to just shy of 44,000. Moving through the outline nicely. And the reason today’s wordcount was sort of low is that I also wrote 2,000 words on a new collab, which I am VERY excited about and has all kinds of potential future life. As in, it’s my first tentative exploration of a world that has been simmering and brewing in the back of my lizard brain for some time now–my next big solo project, which up till now has been just a super cool idea. And now it’s a super cool idea and 2,000 words of what will likely be a 4,000-5,000 word short story. Hey, it’s a start. _______________ Don’t forget, there’s the reading and book signing party this Saturday, August 22, from 2-4pm, for the GRANTS PASS anthology. Authors scheduled are: Jay Lake, Shannon Page, Seanan McGuire, James M. Sullivan and Jennifer Brozek. Details:
Soulfood Books and Cafe
15748 Redmond Way
Redmond, Washington Dinner is still being organized, but there will be one! ________________ Not only all that, but I *also* did laundry today, including hand washing. And watered the orchids. I rock! Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.
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Sale! Received word this morning that “The Passion of Mother Vajpai,” a new collaborative story written with jaylake, sold to Subterranean Press for their TALES OF DARK FANTASY 2 anthology. Woo hoo! Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.
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I’m about to hit 40,000 words on OUR LADY OF THE ISLANDS, which is one-third of the goal. However, I am three full pages of outline away from the point labeled “end of act 1.” I’m inclined to not worry about it–things do tend to get rushy at the climax and ending of a book–but it does make me wonder if I’m on the path to a 150K book instead of a 120K one. Not that THAT would be a problem either–words can always be cut–but it does push my time-of-writing out, in terms of, well, finishing it. I’m nicely on my 40K-a-month pace (having started this draft on 7/13)…a 150K book wouldn’t be finished a mere two weeks later than I’d hoped, but more like a month and a half late. Oh well. Nothing to do but to write it, I suppose. Story-wise, it’s going well. My character is nicely taking action (ahem), and I’m not deviating from the outline in any problematic way. I wrote 2,500 words today (a full Lake!), plus worked on a secondary project about which there should be more news in a few days. _____________ On the social front, I had a lovely dinner last night at Eos with the_ogre, and am anticipating another lovely dinner tomorrow with the President of Glyptotronics and his heretofore-presumably-imaginary brother. And today: No Social Plans! For once. Very nice. Now if you’ll excuse me, my delicious leftovers are ready. Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.
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9:30 pm: just got home from the weekend at Iron Springs. See slightly fuller reports here, and here; I’m sleepy.
Don’t ask me about the underwear signing. But it was pretty funny.
For me, highlights include: what they said, plus the story I submitted for crit, “Souvenirs,” is one I like a lot and haven’t been able to figure out exactly how it’s broken. Now I know. Now I can fix it. Yay!
Also, I “edited” three chapters of NIGHTCRAFT MOTHER, by which I mean made tiny changes here and there for a few pages, then entirely eliminated one character, cut the heart out of a pivotal scene and rewrote it with different action and motivation and outcome, and then stitched the ends back together so it would make sense. I am now officially more than halfway through the page count on this edit, but hopefully far more than halfway through the work, because the latter part of the book needs a lot less changed. I hope. So they say. So we will see.
And, for a change, my trip home featured:
-no blood (except for maybe my eardrums from screeching babies…)
-no late planes
-no traffic
-no parking fail.
In fact we landed 10 minutes early, and now I must finish unpacking and put my tired body to bed.
Ahh, back to the interwebs. Did anything happen while I was gone? No celebrities died, I hope. 
Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.
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1. I deposited a check in my bank account today. A check that was sent to me by someone who published something I wrote. A check in the Middle Low Three Figures. As in, real money! As in, one really fancy or several quite nice dinners out! As in, three weeks of groceries! As in, more than half of my auto registration! As in, somebody paid me to write something!!! (Yeah, this is my biggest one yet–can you tell?)
2. Green is currently #3,717 on the Amazon rankings, on its release day. *Somebody* is making even more than the Middle Low Three Figures for his writing…
Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.
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Just in, thanks to Lovely Editor Jen, a new review of the forthcoming Grants Pass.
Again, I say, I can’t wait to read the rest of those stories!
Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.
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