Category: Uncategorized

Fall in Texas, Grits

Fall in Texas is strange. The days are getting shorter, and some of the leaves have started falling off the trees, but the high temps are still almost 90 degrees. Coming from Seattle, my idea of fall involves cold rain, dark cloudy skies, and wearing a jacket.

More food photography:

Grits and Eggs

Now, normally I’d call this creamy polenta, but seeing as how I’m in Texas, I think I’m obliged to call it grits. (I _think_ technically the difference between the two is in the grind of the cornmeal. …

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Submission, WIP

sub#64 – to Writers of the Future (my 8th sub there).

* * *

My WIP is holding steady at 7000 words. I’m not stuck, I have a fair idea of what comes next. But for the past couple days, instead of writing the next chunk, I’ve gotten stuck writing and re-writing the beginning. Not the whole 7000 words, just the very beginning. Mostly the first paragraph. I think I’ll limit myself to an hour on the first paragraph this afternoon, and then force myself to work on some later portion of the story.

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* sigh *

Two Three recent rejections:

R54 – a 1-day friendly rejection from Lone Star Stories
R55 – a 57-day rejection with mostly positive comments from Strange Horizons.
R56 – a 5-day rejection, with comments, from Shimmer.

* * *

My current WIP is turning out rather longer than I expected — 6k words at the moment, and showing no signs of wrapping up any time soon. But I’m still liking the project, and I’ve decided to just let it do whatever it wants to do. If it’s massively too long when I’m finished, I can always cut it down. …

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Productivity

Two fresh submissions:

sub#63 – to Shimmer (my 3rd sub there)
sub#64 – to Lone Star Stories (my 7th sub there)

One fresh rejection:

rej#53 – a 7-day rejection from Baen’s Universe.

* * *

I’ve been making slow but steady progress on my latest WIP. Averaging about 500 new words per day, plus tinkering with all the words from the previous days. So it’s at around 2,700 words at the moment, and probably around a third of the way finished. I’m hoping that now that the story is a bit more hammered out I’ll be able to pick …

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Japan Highlights: Mt. Koya

Cemetery Path
The path to Okunoin Temple, lined with a half million tombs.

Peter and I spent one night at the Sekishoin temple on Mt. Koya. To get from Kyoto to Mt. Koya, we took the shinkansen (bullet train) to Osaka, then took a subway to a different train (the JR lines, which we rode most of the time, do not go up to Mt. Koya). The train ride was about 90 minutes long, and after that we took a 10 minute cable car ride, followed by a 15 …

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Unpacked!

It’s been a month since I arrived in Texas, and I am pleased to announce that all the boxes have been unpacked. There’s still art to hang on the walls, little piles of things that haven’t found a home, and various other apartment-set-up activities, but we’ve got the furniture mostly where it goes and there are no more boxes. Yay!

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