I meant to finish my novella “The Tales of Sigma City” last week. Things that got in the way include a) germy germ germs and b) Pokémon LeafGreen.

Don’t judge me. I’ll send my Shiny Golbat after you.

Anyway, after a few days of squeezing out a minimum of zero and a maximum of five hundred words a day, I finally managed to kick my flu’s ass and finish the rough draft yesterday. It stands at 21.5k, which I expect to go up a little in revisions–but I have a little wiggle room, so we’ll see how it turns out.

Here’s the required snippet. Our esteemed heroine is sneaking around a place she shouldn’t be, took something she shouldn’t have, and is trying to shake off a handful of guards.

I know what you’re thinking–this calls for Mommy Issues.

Panthress ducks into the alcove—waits for the footsteps to pass—then slips around the corner. This part of the hall is empty. She picks up her pace. The canister presses painfully into her skin, and she’s far too conscious of the weight of it jangling back and forth in her sleeve. More than anything, she’s thinking, I should’ve run while I could.

In her head, her mother’s voice says: For once, you’re right.

And now, time for a few days of sweet, sweet reading.

After passing another draft on to betas, I decided to dig back into a novella I worked on last year that ended up falling by the wayside. (It’s my pulpy ’50s lesbian superhero thing, for those who remember it. The idea is such fun! The execution is so tough!)

I’m rewriting it from scratch, and I’m cautiously optimistic about how it’s turning out. Here’s a snippet:

A day and a half later, the place where Blaze died still smells like fire.

The area is cordoned off, but Panthress doesn’t think it’s meant to do anything but keep children from playing in the factory’s burnt-out skeleton. It’s nothing but a silhouette, barely visible against the near-black background. If the smell doesn’t tell people exactly what happened here, that sight will. Half of the roof is gone. The walls jut into the night sky like crumbled teeth.

“This is nothing like how I left it.”

“Anything in specific we’re looking for?” Stalwart asks.

Panthress doesn’t answer. This may not even be about looking for clues, because this shell of a building will have nothing left for them to find. Maybe it’s just about seeing where Blaze died. About saying, I’m sorry for not staying. I’m sorry for what they’re saying about you.

I promise not to link to every nice thing people say about me, but look! Or… listen, rather! People said nice things about “Eight” on StarShipSofa!

*feels special*

So, I’d been tinkering with BLINK for a while. You know, streamlining info-dumps, fixing a misstep here and there, correcting some continuity, those sorts of things.

Then I sat down and went, “I should probably actually edit.”

So on Saturday, nine thousand words of new material exploded from my fingers, and I’ve spent the rest of the week knitting it into the actual book and making sure everything works smoothly. It’s amazing how many things you notice each and every draft. (HOW did that huge plot hole make it into this book? Tsk.)

As usual, this book is nigh impossible to quote from without context, so here’s a bit from one of the early chapters:

Amara didn’t know how long she sat on the stairs, ignoring other inn customers heading to and from their rooms. She traced Dit letters on her leg for lack of paper. She wished Maart would wake up. That he’d tell her stories of the palace he’d served at like he used to.

Then—one moment to the next—Cilla stalked up the stairs, gripping the banisters on both sides.

Amara jerked back, pulling her hand away from half-traced letters like Cilla might notice and tell on her. She scrambled onto the landing to stand upright. Did it look like she’d been eavesdropping? Or like she’d been slacking? She’d done all the tasks Jorn had demanded of her. Maybe she’d missed one.

Cilla reached the top of the stairs. Normally her eyes were narrowed, hidden in shade, but now they were wide enough for Amara to catch a glint of brown even in the dark.

Amara’s heart sped up, a thump-thump-thump with no pauses in-between—no longer because Cilla might tell on her, but because under her wrappings, Cilla’s chest still heaved from exertion or panic or both. Cilla never rushed unless it was important.

That meant one thing. Cilla was hurt.

So far, so good.

The lovely Beth Cato gave me a heads-up via Twitter that “Eight”, my Strange Horizons story, made this year’s recommended reading list at Tangent Online (though they listed me as Corinne Davis).

Shiny!

I’ve also had this song on my mind for the last couple of days–not even necessarily because of the lyrics or the new year, but just because it’s way stuck in my head.

Schmoopy Dutch music is my Achilles heel.

It’s “Alles Gaat Voorbij” by Acda en de Munnik (studio version here). That translates to “Everything Passes”.

Everything passes
But first, we’ll enjoy it

Is finally live! At Strange Horizons! Which requires all the exclamation marks I can get my hands on.

I’d love it if you checked out “Eight” when you find some time.

Excuse me while I go off to alternate between bouncing and chewing my nails

Worst title ever, I know.

Anyway! As I mentioned on Twitter a few days back, I made a new short story sale, this time to the Dagan Books anthology FISH. My first anthology sale! Neat. The story is titled “The Applause of Others”, and it’s about magic eels in Amsterdam. No, not electric or moray eels — we definitely don’t have those in the canals — the other kind. The kind you smoke and eat.

Anyway x2, if that story concept sounds familiar, it’s because I mentioned it before — it’s my week 6 Clarion West story. One story down, four to go!

The anthology will be out on February 8, 2012, has a lovely cover, and one hell of a ToC. I’ll be reunited with editor K.V.Taylor and author Cate Gardner for the first time since last year’s inaugural Red Penny Papers issue, and other nifty people in the ToC include my loverly Clarion West classmate Maria Romasco-Moore (High five! Affable mofos repra-zent!) and Cat Rambo, whom I also met in Seattle this year.

This is going to be one gorgeous book.

You know how I didn’t do WIP Wednesday last week? Yeah, that’s ’cause I didn’t have any words at the time. I eventually managed 1200 words on a story about narcissistic magic eels in Amsterdam, then scrapped it and worked on a superhero story instead, which was critted yesterday. Consensus: it’s a damn novel. Back to the drawing board.

The opening:

Luka gaped at the man sitting across his living room. “You want me to be a superhero?”

“Ah… I suppose that’s one way to put it. ‘Government operative’ is the favored term.” One corner of the man’s mouth twitched. It was the closest he’d come to smiling yet. Luka was glad to see it, though–the whole emotionless G-man act was kinda creeping him out.

“But I’d be in a team with other superheroes–”

“Operatives.”

“–living in the same headquarters–”

“Base.”

“–using codenames–”

“As non-powered operatives also do. They’ll be unrelated to your abilities.”

“–wearing masks–”

“Only when we deem it necessary to guarantee your anonymity.”

“–and capes?”

The only response to that was a cynical look.

“I’ll still go with ‘superhero’, thanks.”

For next week — my last story! — I’m back to work on my magic eels.

As the week went on, Floor found herself sitting on a nearby dock that extended only a couple of feet out onto the water on an almost daily basis. She’d wear capri pants, bare feet dangling in the cool canal water, her camera on one side of her and the battered library book she was reading for her upcoming Dutch exams in the other. The eel showed its face more often than not; she’d whisper at it, asking what it was doing, and taking occasional snapshots, at this point more out of habit than anything else.

She couldn’t tell which would be the biggest coincidence—if it were the same eel or a different one. There was definitely that same shimmer of blue the British tourist kid had pointed out, even when the eel swam inches below the surface. Other times, when the sun hit it just right, the eel’s shade veered closer to purple, or other times greenish or silver, or sometimes all at once.

No matter how much Floor toyed with her camera’s settings, no matter how much advice she asked from the forums she frequented online, she never managed to capture those shades on camera. She didn’t need to, though. She could see them, and so could Clara and Ronald, and so could the tourists she delightedly pointed the eel out to. They’d ooh and aah and snap pictures the same way she did, and she’d grin and turn to the eel and tell it it was getting popular.

My deadline isn’t until Sunday evening/Monday morning, but I’m determined to finish it early. It’s my last Clarion West story, and the earlier I finish, the more time I have to actually go out and see Seattle. There’s friends and family I’ve yet to meet up with, dorky souvenirs not yet purchased, downtown not yet visited, trips not yet made, booze not yet devoured, books not yet read, and sleep not yet slept.

Er, I guess those last few don’t have much to do with the actual city. It still counts!

You know what’s awesome?

Naps. Naps are awesome.

I’ll keep this short and sweet, since I still have two stories to critique for tomorrow, I’d like to get some writing done on my own story, and Margo Lanagan is coming over to the house for cocktails in abooouuut… one hour.

Here’s my opening for next week’s story:

“Dear God,” Susannah whispers, dragging me into this world, into darkness.

I don’t know who I am.

But I’m not God.

I claw for an escape, but Susannah’s stupid, childish words anchor me here. They pin me into the ground alongside dust and tangled clutches of hair and discarded toys and dead bugs.

And knees.

Susannah’s knees.

They dig into the carpet. Her feet are bare. Her skin glows white. I can just see an inch of spindly upper leg overrun with dark coarse hairs before the underside of the bed steals the rest of her from my sight.

“That’s how it starts. Right?” Susannah says. She sounds distracted. Her knees shift in rough-hewn carpet. I hope it hurts.

I string together curses, spit them out.

There’s another voice. This one comes from further away. I can’t see. I can’t see beyond Susannah’s legs and the carpet. Beyond wooden slats overhead.

The voice says: “I guess. I don’t pray. It’s stupid.”

“Grandma asked us.”

There’s silence from the other end of the room.

“Well, I’m doing it, anyway.”

It’s about the monster under the bed… from the monster’s perspective. It’s screwed up, I’m excited about it, and its very tentative working title is “We Use the Pain (And Want Some More of It)” after the Guano Apes song.

It doesn’t quite work for the story anymore, but it’s what inspired the idea, so I’m sticking with it for now.

Yep.

Still alive!

And still doing surprisingly well. I’m running on very little sleep, but I don’t feel like I’m about to crash, which is a lovely surprise.

I’m not sure what to say about my experience here that hasn’t already been documented in other blogs in more detailed and eloquent ways. I’m living in a house with seventeen other SFF writers, and next door to our instructor. I have three-four short stories to critique per day, and a new one to write per week. It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of fun. It’s a lot of alcohol It’s a lot of sleep deprivation. It’s a lot of Bananagrams. It’s a lot of sorority girls wandering through the backyard. It’s a lot of silly quotes for the T-shirt. It’s a lot of new friends. It’s a lot of delicious, sharp, beautiful insights on writing. It’s a lot of insecurity. It’s a lot of ego boosting.

It’s, basically, a lot.

For this week, I wrote a story called Lilo Is, affectionately referred to as “spiderbaby” throughout the house. It was critiqued on yesterday, and very well-received overall, which was a huge relief… and put on the pressure for next week.

Right now, I have nearly 2400 words finished of the first draft for that one. It’s going to be a horror story, on a space ship, with lesbians and weird cats. There are no spiderbabies. Its working title is Bound Home, and here’s the opening paragraphs:

“He looks like he’s dead.”

I stroked Een’s grey-tabby fur, his body perfectly still under my touch. Hairs clung to my sweaty palms. He never used to shed this much. His fur never looked this patchy, either. It stuck out in little clumps, like he was the one sweating, not me.

Paws lay limply on the gleaming steel table. His mouth hung open, his tongue dangling out.

Wouldn’t that be something? I managed to kill my cat with only two months left to go before the Malak arrived on Earth.

“He’ll be all right,” the girl on the other side of the table said. She’d introduced herself earlier, but I’d been so focused on scanning the wall compartments to figure out where they kept Een that her name had slipped right past me.

She cocked her head, sending spiked rows of hair flopping left. She scritched Een behind his ears. His lack of response didn’t seem to bother her. “Look at the monitors. His heart is starting back up already.”

I let my hands rest over his ribcage. Softly, ever-so-softly, his fur beat against my fingertips: thump.

Then, seconds later: thump.

“C’mon, kittyface,” I whispered, too soft for the girl to hear.

“A lot of people are pulling their pets out of stasis lately,” she said. “Don’t you worry. He’ll be running around in less than a day. Cats are steel.”

It needs to be handed in by Sunday night.

… and right now it’s 9PM and I still have four stories to critique by tomorrow. Gulp.

Hey. A non-scheduled post. I guess that means I’m still alive!

[Good news imminent. Stick with me, here.]

There are all kinds of things I’d like to say about being here at Clarion West. What I’m experiencing. Things I’ve learned. How awesome it is to be having Pop-Tarts and chocolate chip pancakes again. How I’m savoring every last bit of the salty liquorice I brought because I know it’ll be a while before I get to have any again.

Instead, I’d like to bring up a post I wrote a couple of months ago, just before the new year: A Year of Failure, or, Holy Shiz, I’m OK!

In it, I mentioned three things I’d meant  to accomplish in 2010 — sell a short story that was on submission early that year; get into Clarion West; sign with an agent.

None of those happened. And I was OK with that. Hence, uh, the title.

Enter 2011.

January 21st: I received an offer from Agent Michael.

January 31st: I accepted that offer.

March 3rd: Clarion e-mailed that I was accepted into the San Diego workshop.

March 12th: Neile Graham called with the news that I was accepted into Clarion West, as well. I accepted on the spot.

March 15th: Strange Horizons sent me an R&R regarding a time travel story called Eight.

April 20th: I sent in the revised version.

June 17th: I traveled almost 5000 miles to attend Clarion West in Seattle.

June 25th: Strange Horizons e-mailed to tell me they accepted Eight for publication. I stomped downstairs with my netbook under my arm and freaked the hell out of the students diligently writing in the main living room by going “ZOMG YOU GUYS YOU GUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUYS. FIRST PRO SALE. STRANGE HORIIIIIIIIIIIIIIZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONS.”

Basically…

Basically I am in love with 2011.

In November, prepare to receive a giant, giant headache from time travel complications.