Uncategorized – Page 17 – Caroline M. Yoachim

Thanksgiven

Had a lovely lovely time at Maureen’s ‘orphan Thanksgiving’ tonight. Good company, good food and drink. Food highlights included juicy delicious turkey, sausage-parsnip-apple stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes topped with brown sugar and pecans, pumpkin pie, deep-dish apple pie, and chocolate amaretto cake. (And I ate all of the above, including ALL THREE DESSERTS. It is Thanksgiving, after all.)

My contribution to the feast was French vanilla ice cream, spiced pumpkin seeds, and cinnamon-sugar coated roasted almonds:

The almonds came out …

Business Cards!

I finally got around to ordering myself some business cards:

These half-size business cards came from http://moo.com — they have pictures on one side and contact info on the other side. You can pick out as many pictures as you want (straight from flickr, if you happen to have a flickr account). I picked out ten different designs, including colored pencils, gummy bears, plasma ball, fire, and (of course) tentacles.

Vanilla Bean

Whole Foods sells vanilla beans — a single bean folded in half and placed in its very own little spice jar:

I bought one, so as to follow shelly_rae‘s suggestion that vanilla bean ice cream might make a good accompaniment the apple pie she’ll be bringing to Maureen’s “Orphan Thanksgiving.”

I’ve never worked with a whole vanilla bean before, but it’s kind of fun. You slice the bean open and scrape out the little tiny seeds inside:

…

Another sub…and the realization that not all revisions are improvements

Sub#74 – to Weird Tales (my first sub there)

I’ve been struggling with this story, revising it and revising it, and I looked at the most recent version this morning and it was pretty terrible. Basically, in trying to fix this problem or that problem (over a series of drafts), I’d shredded the story into an incoherent mess. So instead of starting with the most recent version, I went backwards (not to the original draft, but to the first revision), and from there made a few changes, and suddenly the story worked.

* * *

This puts me at TEN …

Stories don’t sell unless you submit them

Sent out three submissions today:

Sub#71 – To ASIM (my second sub there)
Sub#72 – To Realms of Fantasy (my third sub there)
Sub#73 – To F&SF (my 12th sub there)

Also today — revised a story (which was one of the three I submitted) and sent a query letter. Hooray for productivity!

Seven Stories Out

Two more submissions:

Sub#69 – To Town Drunk (my second submission there)
Sub#70 – To Abyss and Apex (my first submission there)

and

Rejection#61 – 22-days to a personal rejection from Nature Magazine’s Futures.

No Bridge Required

Went out and snapped a few pictures at Bull Creek today, including this shot of the road that leads up to the park. The creek runs right over the road (this isn’t flooding or anything, it hasn’t rained in days). There’s a little sign post next to the road so that you can see how deep the water is. Today it was only about two inches deep.

The park was pretty scenic, and I got reasonably good shots of a grackle and a dragon fly. …

So close, and yet…

Rejection #60 – 111-days from Noctem Aeternus. The story got past the first round reader, and the final rejection was positive, with encouragement to send another story in the future.

And then, to keep my numbers up:

Submission #68 – to Chizine

So I still have 6 stories out, at: Cemetery Dance, Writers of the Future, Nature Magazine, Coyote Wild, Strange Horizons, and Chizine.

Tow Trucks: The Saga Continues

Coming late to the saga? Start at the beginning.

Now, as promised, the stunning conclusion of the Tow Truck Saga…

How many tow trucks does it take to haul away a dead garbage truck?
Answer: Five.

– A white semi truck, on which to load the garbage truck. (Dies)
– A red semi truck, to tow the white semi and attached garbage truck. (Dies)
– A black semi truck, to tow away the cab of the white semi truck.
– Another …

Stuck

Around 9 o’clock this morning, in the apartment complex one over from mine, a garbage truck died. I heard the noise of the engine giving out — some pitiful whines and squeals and then nothing. The garbage truck guys called for a tow, and they loaded the garbage truck onto the bed of a semi. The semi truck, with garbage truck securely loaded on the back, attempted to go up the road (which involves a small, but steep, hill). The semi died.

So there was a dead white …

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