author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

This is just to say that the short story "Turbulence" has now gathered its fifth rejection letter. It will not see print in Asimov's. *Sigh*

This is also to say that the short story in question was only allowed to visit long enough for a cup of tea and a little chat. Then it was propelled firmly out the door again. Consider it re-slushed.

And that is all.

So I've finally cracked open The Drowning Boy, determined how many chapters fits in 10,000 words (four, if you want to know), and applied two hours of unflinching scrutiny to the prose therein.

I have come to this conclusion:

Sending the first three chapters as they stand now to Wizards of the Coast? What was I thinking?

[shakes head, facepalms, loads fountain pen with fresh ink]

At upper left (upper left in the current style sheet, anyway; I reserve the right to change it at any time, so there) you will find two manuscripts. One is a novel. One is a short story. You will probably not need to be told which is which, even if you haven't been reading along all this time. The word counts will be dead giveaways.

About the novel: There are things which Diane probably shouldn't know as early as Chapter Two. Today's session was mostly spent figuring out which things those were, and what other things to replace them with. Some of said figuring out took place over a plate of bacon and eggs, because I felt like it.

("Save all manner of bacon grease. You will be instructed as to its use later.")

About the short story: I and a veritable bouquet of postage stamps in various denominations have sent it out into the word again. My next assignment, in case the story should come back unbought, is to make up a list of four other editorial desks/slush piles it should visit, and be prepared to ship it off to the next one right away. And, should this exercise result in nothing more victorious than five rejection letters from five professional markets, I need to decide on a second tier list, because that's how this game is played.

("Send it out 'til hell won't have it.")

May every week end as productively as this one.

Because I slack off on weekends. You know, like the rest of that portion of the human race that lives in this country. And given that I'm going out clubbin' tonight, it's quite likely that 6:00 AM and I will not be seeing each other tomorrow, either.

And I can go out clubbing. I did my homework. I met my deadline. Whoo-chaaaaa.

(Dear [any friends who have emailed me lately and are waiting for a reply]: Thank you for your patience. Now that I am All Done, a response will be forthcoming. Tomorrow, most likely.)

My husband and I had this conversation about work for hire assignments. On the one hand, they come with deadlines. Deadlines are good; they make writing actually happen. If the writing doesn't actually happen at a rate of 1,000 words per day over 15 days, it happens in dribs and drabs until one painful 8,000 word all-nighter at the eleventh hour. But it gets done.

(For the record, this project--which will be on sale here sometime soon--was somewhere in between the two scheduling styles mentioned above.)

On the other hand, they interfere with my Raisin Due Otter, which is to say, writing fiction. I haven't finished a new short story in, like, ages. And that's despite requests. And I really, really, really ought to be getting my VP application together, and revising a couple battle-scarred short stories so they can return to the front ranks of the slush wars, and, y'know, stuff. But no, I have instead been working on non-fiction/journalism stuff to which I don't even get to keep the copyright.

On the third hand (yes, I'm a mutant today), two of these projects right at the beginning of the year means that my business account has seen a profit. Writing paid for my cell phone coverage. That's cool, right?

In any case, I have marked myself as Unavailable To New Projects Of This Nature until March 3rd, the date on which--train schedules permitting--I return from a trip home. (For Mardi Gras. Quite possibly the most important, historical Mardi Gras since they brought in the megafloats and moved out of the Quarter. Maybe even since the first one. I don't think y'all need me to tell y'all why.) Until then, I am not only on Mardi Gras vacation; I'm on a writing vacation.

'Cause that's another good thing about WFH stuff. Yesterday, I was revising The Golden Bridle as a break from working on the WFH project. I was working on a novel for fun. Wow. Nothing like blowing a little perspective into my life, huh? So, yeah. Fiction is fun, and now I get like three weeks to do nothing but fiction. Whoot!

And then, when I get back to Denver, I'll probably pick up another "not so fun but it pays the bills" project. If not of the same type, then of another. Because all those good reasons above really do outweigh the bad, and really, with 24 hours in a day, exactly how much fiction not getting done can I really blame on two hours spent filling in the blanks on an editor-provided outline? I mean, really. Most people work eight hours a day five days a week. Surely I can work a bit more than two or three.

'Cause I'll tell you one thing. SkillJam.com ain't paying the bills or giving me much job fulfillment, and that's the truth.

Quick shout-out going to Keith and Deric in Chicago, Illinois, who rang me up this afternoon on my cell phone and said not much more than, "Can we speak to Nicole? Hi, this is Keith. Deric is on the line, too," before hanging up on me. Hi y'all! Call back anytime y'all have more to say.

At last count, I have two contacts in the Chicago area. One's a gal I met there at World Horror Con '02, and I owe her email. Or she owes me email. I forget. The other's one of my bestest oldest childhood friends; she and her husband moved there after Katrina wrecked their brand-new New Orleans area home. Neither of these good people are named Keith or Deric. But I have known folks by those names, and for all I know, they could be in Chicago now. So, hey, you guys? If I should have recognized you, sorry I didn't!

(In the interest of accuracy, the call came from a 312 area code, which is Chicago, but the callers might have been elsewhere. That's the magic of cell phones.)

Meanwhile, I note that the NaNoPubYe.org goal for Month Three is 30 hours of editing, or one hour per day. As you've probably guessed, that's not going to happen before January is over. However, what with my plans to submit The Golden Bridle to Delacorte, there isn't a lot of other editor/agent researching necessary at this stage, so Month Four can be mainly a Month Three extension. Well, OK, it wouldn't hurt to research up a Plan B list, sure, just so I know where I'll be going afterwards on the off-chance that Delacorte doesn't heap glowing accolades upon my head, but it's not as urgent as it would be if I hadn't any idea of what Plan A was, I think.

OK, OK, I'm just justifying my being behind schedule. Fine. I admit it. Happy?!

The undatabasable WIP? It is done. Watch this space for details.

By the way. It is, for the record, rather freaky when you're busy researching data points for your work in progress, and one of the top three Google hits you get is the page that's waiting for the finished work in progress.

Now. If you'll excuse me, I'll be over in that corner, collapsed and unconscious.

The essay has been sent. Nevermind that it's three-quarters-past-midnight on the 16th; I have at last finished and submitted my "geek" essay. With any luck the editors will let the extra 45 minutes slide and they'll read it anyway.

I'm not as happy with it as I might be, but the ending made my nose prickle and my eyes water, so I guess the right chords get hit by the end. I'm not entirely sure my Mom would be as happy with it as I'd want her to, either; hopefully she'll take it in the spirit with which it's intendend.

And yes, yes I know, I had misspelled Jane Austen's name in my previous entry. All better now, see?

There. Now. On to other things with deadlines.

Hey-checkitout-lookover-here. Someone else made some resolutions for the coming year. And they're pretty good. A goodly helping of writerly resolutionnessage, right over there, along with a lovely dollop of total anal-retentive "We Love Outlines" structural organization. Man after my own heart, that.

Not that I can totally adopt any particular one of those resolutions, of course. Everyone's got different goals. But the important thing is to make one's own goals concrete, solid enough to throw numbers into it and wrap it up in an outline. I'd do the same at the moment, only it's late at night and I'm totally chicken. Were I well-rested and more gutsy at the moment, I'd probably say something like "1,000 words of fresh new prose or 2 hours of revision every day, 5 days a week, just like Carolyn See says to do; also, toss three old stories back in the slush this month and at least one new one next month. And then there's the two novels I'm editing...."

The problem with me when I'm gutsy is, I'm stupid. Who the hell can do all that crap on top of 15,000 contracted words of researched and interviewed nonfiction?

It's something to try for, sure. Just not something to beat myself over the head with.

I do know I can't do 3 critiques a week. More like one and a half, to take care of both Critters and my local writing class. But I can at least resolve to do that much. The nice thing about manuscript critiquing is, every manuscript I read puts me in mind of manuscripts of my own. Usually the sort that are languishing at the back of a drawer, or maybe a third of the way down the directory file listing when sorted by date in descending order. I should probably add "Putting Down Roots" to my list of stories that ought to go back into the slush, for instance. And "Somewhere Else Red And Green."

(Caution: Short story titles subject to change without notice.)

A new New Year's resolution for me: I shall be prolific. Primarily in my finishing of work and submitting of work, and secondarily in my beginning of new work, I shall be prolific. I shall totally be able to apply that adjective, "prolific," unto myself.

With a straight face, even.

No, really!

Sorry for the cliche, but it's not. It's an announcement that I'm working on a new short story--yeah, I do that sometimes--but that it doesn't have a title yet or has even been added to my manuscript-and-submissions-logging database, because I've been all hell-bent to get the web interface for said database up and running so I can finally use something easier than phpMyAdmin across several tables to enter new records.

Ah, HTML. HTML, PHP, MySQL. Those lovely procrastination tools that keep on justifying themselves.

Just to keep this entry from being a total waste, behold! I give you an open call for submissions to an anthology: She Is Such A Geek. Gals only. Personal essays requested. All forms of Geekdom welcome. I think. Don't ask me, I'm just passing on the link. Same with the person whose web page I've linked to. So, make sure you note the email address of the actual editors of the actual anthology; don't bug Jed Hartman about it.

So, I'm not sure how much I've said about my previous work-for-hire project (or if I ever linked to the finished product for sale over here), but it looks like I'm taking a couple more on from the same company. More will be said after completion. Actually, there will probably be some whining about it during the process, because underneath my hard-working exterior is a lazy ass trying to get out, but it will be non-identifying whining, because of confidentiality agreements, and because there's really a limit to how much whining my sense of dignity--what little of that I have--will allow me to do.

Anyway, work will start on that after Christmas day. You have been worked.

Meanwhile, I've finally finished chapter 11. All that sidling up on the story finally caught me some dinner: I've figured out how Brian manages to hold his inner beast in check for long enough at a time to interact with the mermaids at all. Without going into a lot of detail, it has to do with channeling the urge for violence through his more noble intentions. OK, that sounds kinda woo-woo, but in context it's rockin' cool. Or at least it's viable, and consistent with both character and plot. And now everyone's off to see the wizard--I mean, the shark. Big difference there. Wizard, shark. One of them sits behind a curtain and tries to scare you. The other has like a million teeth as long as your arm and doesn't have to try. Anyway, off to see the shark.