Caroline M. Yoachim

1300 words today

I’ve re-started my vaguely alternate history story about seven times now, but I’m finally optimistic that this one will take. I switched the POV from third person to first, which has gotten the words flowing, and I think I’ve shaped it such that it no longer involves much history (which, for me, is also a good thing). In any case, I’m determined to force the story through to the end no matter how badly this version sucks because, dammit, I want to finish something. Then I can inflict it on one of my many writing groups and they can tell …

Rejection #10

It might be time to do some additional revisions on those spiders…16-day rejection from Clarkesworld, with some nice comments about what wasn’t working.

Rejection #9

From JJA at F&SF. I’m feeling relatively happy about this particular rejection because it contains the phrase “there’s nice writing here,” which is a step up from the standard didn’t-grab-my-interest letters that I’ve been getting.

What I learned in my first hour on the beach: (1) Rocks covered in green slime are slippery, (2) climbing onto said rocks to avoid errant waves is a bad idea, and (3) hiking back to the car in wet jeans & shoes is cold.

Other than that (and a bit of rain Friday morning) I managed to stay dry. Friday night the sun came out just in time for sunset, which made for some nice pictures that are now up on my Flickr site.

And this happy little fellow is called the gouger…

Have to head to the dentist this afternoon to have a filling replaced. Shudder.

In more cheerful news, tomorrow I’m heading out to the coast for a few days. There are some gorgeous beaches with nifty rock formations and tidepools, so it should be a good place to play photographer. And I’ll also be able to hit the Dungeness Crab festival in Port Angeles. Yum!

I have to assume that when I come back from my little jaunt all rested and recovered, I’ll be bursting with energy to work on one of my three new stories. I keep starting them, …

Submissions #10 and #11

Repackaged my spiders and sent them out to Clarkesworld a while back. They’ve got a quick turnaround time, so I should hear back on that one pretty soon. And, stretching my 3-subs-by-the-end-of-September deadline a bit, my Mori (formerly Kali) Birds are sealed up in their envelope and ready to go out in the mail to F&SF tomorrow.

Adventures in Portland

Kelly Link gave a reading at Powell’s Books on Friday, which was a good excuse for me to head down to Portland to visit tinaconnolly. In addition to the reading (which was excellent–I expected Kelly to read something from Magic for Beginners, but instead she read a story that isn’t out in print yet), we wandered around in Washington Park, found some delicious dark chocolate, and drank mojitos…All in all a very fun trip! I snapped a few pictures, which are up on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/78523822@N00/

Rejection #8, Submission #9

Return of the Spiders…
My spiders failed to crawl up out of the slush pile at F&SF. I probably could just repackage them and send them back out, but I’ve had a couple thoughts on revising them that I might play around with first.

Ducks away!
Sent off my submission for this quarter’s Writers of the Future on Thursday. Hope they like mechanical ducks!

POETIC IMAGE NUMBER 37 NOT FOUND

Sat down at my computer to work on one of my new stories (I have two different things that I’ve started post-clarion I’m not making much progress on), but the words won’t come. Or they do come, but they’re completely the wrong words. The problem is that I’ve lost the creative intensity of the workshop. There’s no way to maintain that level of productivity and energy indefinitely, of course, but lately I’m feeling like a firefly that can’t light up.

Freedom! Horrible, horrible freedom!

Well, I’ve done a third pass on my spiders, and they are now neatly packaged up and ready to go to F&SF in tomorrow’s mail (aka, I’m setting them free…hehe). That’s one down and two to go for the submission challenge (3 subs in Sept). Submission number two is in pretty good shape, and it’ll probably go to WotF. Submission number three…*shrug* There’s still a fair amount of time left, I’m sure something will come to me :)

Thanks to the excellent recommendations of my Clarion classmates, I’ve been reading tons of great SF lately (in reverse chronological order): Marooned …