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A slight derailment

occurred this week with the car situation. It was resolved at lightning speed — and M’Lady is a dream — but still required a significant amount of stress and time to work out. Very little writing was done and only two days of running were achieved, so some work accomplished, but not as much as I had hoped.

The car situation also forced me to spend two hours digging through unfiled paperwork, causing me to come to the conclusion that having two years worth of unfiled paperwork is a bad thing that needs to be rectified. This requires me to purchase new a new filing cabinet(s), buy folders/large envelopes, and set time to go through the process of sorting and putting everything in its place. Ideally, I would keep things organized after accomplishing this feat, and though past history has shown I will not, I remain hopeful.

The Poetry Collection must be postmarked by the middle of this week, so writing goals shall be mainly focused on that. I can’t tell you how much I thrive on the stress of a deadline. I’m not entirely sure it’s a good thing to thrive on, but I do and so I’m going to use it to my best advantage.

Things to do in the coming week:
– Make final edits to the poems I know I want to include in Poetry Collection, compile said collection, and submit to contest.
– Rewrite Chapter One/Write Chapter Two of Novel
– Walk/Run at least three days this week & at least 2 miles each day (0/3)
– Do yoga (three sun salutations minimum) each morning before work (0/5)
– Contact my sisters accountant to find out about setting up an IRA
– Get info and such together to send taxes in.
– Either purchase new a new filing cabinet(s), and/or buy folders/large envelopes, and/or go through the process of sorting and putting everything in its place.
– Contact Apple store or computer guys and get data transferred from the old computer to the new one (may require giving up my computer for a few days) – May hold off on this till next week, which seems to be my ongoing motto here. *sigh*
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How was your weekend, lovelies? Full of joy and accomplishments, I hope.

[Cross-posted to my livejournal. You are welcome to comment here or there.]
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Things I have been meaning to post about…

1. lar_laughs posted about swordpunk, which is a way to approach fantasy writing and have fun. She quotes from the Swordpunk Manifesto, and I shall do the same: “I think the fear that fantasy writers have is that if they don’t
reinvent the wheel, they won’t be taken seriously. Like Tad Williams is
going to roll up and revoke their Fantasy License.”

2. What the Dragon Said: A Love Story, by Catherynne M. Valente, is a stunning poem. Seriously, go read it.

3. Speaking of poems, Rose Lemberg has asked editors of speculative poetry to recommend what they consider to be the five best poems of 2012. There is a lot of good poetry reading to be had.

4. Jim Hines has posted his income from writing for 2012, something he does every year in order to be open about the reality of the writing life and dispel myths about all writers being millionaires.

5. Have you read Nova Ren Suma’s Turning Points series, in which she asks authors what the turning point in their writing life was? If not, I highly recommend you do. Amazing posts from great writers abound.

6. Malinda Lo has a great post up about heteronormativity in fantasy. In the two-part post she focuses on two questions:

  1. What constitutes “subtlety” when it comes to describing same-sex relationships in fiction?
  2. Is it believable to have same-sex relationships in a medieval-esque fantasy world?
[Cross-posted to my livejournal. You are welcome to comment either here or there.]
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Mindful Writing Day!

Sky blooms patches grey as stone—
a mixture of warm light and cool rain
spattering the contours of my face.

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This is my response for Mindful Writing Day! To join in, simply slow down, pay attention to one thing and write it down (making a small stone). Participants also have the opportunity to get publish and win a paperback copy of the book.

Also, the small stones anthology, ‘A Blackbird Sings: a book of short poems‘ is completely free on Kindle today. Download your copy from Amazon UK, Amazon US or your own Amazon.

[Cross-posted to my livejournal.]
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Ready… Set …

Tomorrow is the first ever Mindful Writing Day, organised by Kaspa & Fiona at Writing Our Way Home! Yay!

To join in simply slow down, pay attention to one thing and write it down (making a small stone ). As per Fiona: “small stones are easy to write, and they will help you connect to the world. Once you’ve started, you might not want to stop…” Read all about it here. You can also submit your small stone and see it published on the blog, and be entered into a competition to win one of five paperback copies of the book.

I shall gleefully be trying to write as many mindful stones as I can tomorrow. (^_^)

Also, in celebration of tomorrow’s Mindful Writing Day, a free kindle copy (US & UK) of the new anthology, “A Blackbird Sings: a book of short poems” (which includes a poem by me) is available both today and tomorrow! For joy!

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In other news…. tomorrow (or rather tonight at midnight) kicks of Nanowrimo or Anti-Nano or whatever writing challenge you choose to launch into for November. In my case, it’s my Anti-Nano almost-from-scratch rewrite of my Untitled Werewolf novel, for which I am not prepared mentally or organizationally or in any way at all. *sigh*

[Cross-posted to my livejournal.]
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Presenting… A Blackbird Sings

A Blackbird Sings

A Blackbird Sings: a book of short poems, is an anthology of small stones (i.e., short poetry) edited by Fiona Robyn and Kaspalita Thompson. 

I am thrilled to announce that my poem, “Bird Collides with Window” will be appearing in the anthology! It is the first time any of my work will appear in an edition that has a real, live ISBN! For joy! (^_^)

More information and sample poems are here, and you can find more small stones featured on the ongoing webzine a handful of stones.

Pre-order of the paperback edition is available in the UK or US. And kindle version is also coming soon… (there will be a promotion to obtain the anthology as a free kindle edition when it goes live, so I’ll try to let you know when that happens).

[Cross-posted to my livejournal.]