author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

Good afternoon! Yesterday's episode of Story Hour went very well. I'm pretty sure I only mispronounced two words, maybe three. I read my short story "Survival, After," which wound up pairing very well with Brian Hugenbruch's heartwarming "An Elicitation of Thursdays" in that both stories just pile on the weirdness paragraph by paragraph until you just give up and say, "OK, fine, jerky is nocturnal and puke can have great handwriting, whatever, everything about this is perfectly normal."

If you missed it, never fear, the recording will live on for as long as Facebook endures, and you don't need a login to watch it.

So. Thing the really Second. Referring to two Things of great potential stress I had accomplished on a day in late March. One of them was getting my laptop ready to ship for repairs. The other thing was this:

I had finally decided it was time I stepped away from my volunteer gig with the Audio Information Network of Colorado.

I had been reading for them since... oh, I forget. A good few years before they changed their name from Radio Reading Service of the Rockies to what it is now. A few years yet before I quit my day job with Wall Street On Demand. So... 2002? 2003? A good long while, in any case. Long enough that, as much as I still believed in and supported their mission, the only reason I was still doing it was because I had been doing it so long. Twenty-years-ago-me had decided to do it, and present-day-me hadn't really reevaluated that decision.

It was time to move on. With fondness and some regret, I emailed my resignation... and gave some thought to where present-day-me might like to spend those eight-to-ten hours a week.

First off, the easy answer: More writing! I'm not going to tell anyone else that they should write every day, but, notwithstanding my recent rant about YES WRITERS GET WEEKENDS AND HOLIDAYS OFF DAMMIT, it turns out I really shouldn't. If I don't write every day, it messes me up. I lose my rhythm. If I take the weekend off, I tend to lose Monday too, just trying to get back into the swing of things, and then Thursday comes too soon--so much for a productive week!

So maybe I don't want to take Fridays and Sundays off. Maybe I can use those newly freed-up morning hours for at least an abbreviated version of my Morning Shift.

And. Well. Have I? Um. Sometimes. New habits are hard, y'all. But more often than not, yes, yes I have, and it's a good thing.

Secondly, there's something else I've been meaning to do for a very long time. Something else at the crossroads of "volunteer" and "read aloud." And that something is LibreVox.

Turns out, I like reading aloud, but I want to focus on narrating fiction, both for my own enjoyment and to strengthen my resume in this regard. So about ten years ago, I formed the intention of volunteering for LibreVox. I even made a post on their forum introducing myself and everything. And then, what with one thing and another, the years went by. I never even recorded a one-minute test file, which is the very first step volunteers are supposed to take.

So I guess now I stand a better chance of finding time to do that. Good luck me!

Next time: Hell, I don't know. Probably some whining about how writing new poetry is hard. Because it is. Stay tuned.

As y'all know, the two major activities taking up my life right now are writing (see blog title) and roller derby (see blog post categories). And as it turns out, you get to see me--online--in both of those capacities, right now. More or less. Like so:

Watch me skate! This past Friday, May 20th, my team drove down to Colorado Springs to play against Pikes Peak Derby Dames. It went great. I mean, we didn't win, but we played hard, staged an amazing comeback, and learned a heck of a lot of the sorts of things you just don't learn until you go up against a stronger team. (Stronger for now...)

And you can watch! Roller Planet livestreamed the event, and that footage is archived and available. It does require a paid membership, but it's pretty darn cheap. I ponied up the $3.99 for a month of access, and wow I'm impressed with this outfit. It's good, high-quality video with three cameras and scoreboard infographics, and the audio includes a direct feed from the announcer's mic so you can actually hear him say derby-useful stuff like "Rickashanaynay is your leeeeeeeeeeeeeead jammer!" and also less explicable things which, OK, whatever, glad you're having fun, we are too!

Anyway. If you're interested, go over there and subscribe. Then, once you'll all logged in, click through the top-row menu to CONTENT -> SPORTS, then scroll down until you find the Pikes Peak Derby Dames games. At this time there are three games listed, and you want "PPDD All Stars vs. Boulder County." If you're looking for me, I'm #504 with the long braid, the gold shorts, and the fleur-de-lis leggings.

Come listen to me read a story! Tomorrow, Wednesday, May 25, will be my second appearance on Story Hour. I'll be one of two featured authors, the other being Brian Hugenbruch. Showtime starts at 8:00 PM Mountain Time and runs--you guessed it--about an hour.

If you click over to the Story Hour website, you'll find links to both the Zoom and the Facebook livestreams. I recommend going with Zoom if you can manage it. Zoom is where it's hosted, and Zoom is where you can participate in the live chat with the authors and host, and if you put Zoom in Gallery View you'll be able to see everyone at once. I mention that last because some of y'all may be hoping to see Holland bunny-bomb the proceedings. Last year he came begging for treats just before I took the mic, so he didn't make it onto the Facebook video. Alas!

Facebook is also where you'll go to see the archived video after the show is no longer live. That goes for last year's appearance, too--but be warned, that one turned out to be a bit of a tear-jerker. Be cutting onions or something so you have plausible deniability.

Next time: Thing the Second, but for real! (I reviewed my notes after last post and realized that Medical Appointment Tetris was not in fact Thing the Second. It was most likely Thing the Third. But who's counting?)

Heh. "Tomorrow." But y'all know how that goes by now.

So the ephemera reading went really, really well! I was super nervous, of course, but that never changes. Still, I was grateful to be able to go first, so that I could give the other authors and artists the attention their lovely words deserved without being distracted by still being nervous.

How lovely was lovely? Very! Shimshon Obadia's poetry did that thing where every word they said caused me to reevaluate every previous they'd said, so that I was out of breath and mind blown by the time they were done. Stephen Granade's piece began in the wry, witty genre of list format fiction, completely failing to prepare me for that tiny snowball of understated emotion that brought an avalanche of "I'm not crying YOU'RE crying" down on everyone's head. And Ai Jiang's three flash pieces were masterfully haunting, turning simple images and innocent phrases ("Don't scratch, children") into gems of creepy loveliness, or lovely creepiness, that will stay with me for a long time.

(Above links go to @ephemeraseries's live-tweeting of each author/artist. Yes, there's a thread about my reading too. They said such nice things!)

Bonus: I got to treat everyone to BUNNY ZOOMBOMBING just before we went live. Holland saw me on the sofa and said "Oh, is it treat time?" and, well, yes. Because he asked so adorably, it was.

You can listen to the replay via ephemera's YouTube channel--click through to VIDEOS and it's Episode 28--or you can just click on this link here.

You'll next be able to hear me read live online during Story Hour on May 25. I don't yet know which author I'll be paired with, and I probably won't know which of us will go first until we're in the "green room" a few minutes before the show, but I can guarantee a good time for the whole hour long, because Story Hour is awesome like that.

So that's one bit of info I've been owing you. Here's another: the January Friday Fictionette Round-up. (I've also got the February round-up ready to go, but let's leave something for next blog post, right?)

Friday, January 7, 2022: "The Book People of Bloomsbury Falls" (ebook, audio) In which we find out who's best at identifying them, and what happens when we're right. Talking about them wasn't good for my temper.

Friday, January 14, 2022: "A Changed World" (ebook, audio) In which Sleeping Beauty wakes up and discovers who currently owns the world. "You know our law. Accept no gift without accepting the debt."

Friday, January 21, 2022: "One Last Spectacle" (ebook, audio) In which we know that whatever happens, however strange, must be the Magician's will. And we applaud. The automata were always unfailingly responsible and polite, which we all thought reflected well upon the Magician.

Friday, January 28, 2022: "Just Doing My Job" (ebook, audio) In which fairy dust is one hell of a drug. That's my job: to remind her that an ordinary life is worth living. One of my jobs, anyway.

Looks like I still haven't designated any of these the Fictionette Freebie for January. Let's make it "The Book People of Bloomsbury Falls." I'm particularly fond of it and would love to enable you to download it without worrying about a subscription.

In addition to the February round-up, I've also got more computer woes to gripe about. But I also have an impending poetry reprint to celebrate! And a bunch of hours in my week that are about to get freed up! So you can look forward to some of that news tomorrow.

Or, indeed, "tomorrow."

Hello the blog! I have an announcement for y'all: TOMORROW, March 16, I will be a guest reader on ephemera.

ephemera is a dreamy Toronto-based reading series (which has gone virtual for the same reason everything post-2020 has gone virtual) chaired by KT Bryski and Jen Albert. It's held the third Wednesday of every month at 7:00 PM Eastern Time. It typically features three guest author readings and a performance, all stitched together by the hosts' quirky continuity shenanigans. I have no idea what those shenanigans will consist of this time; the Twitter announcement says "BRING-YOUR-OWN-THEME" which could mean anything.

How this came about is, last year I worked with KT Bryski on the podcast of "Survival, After." I was, and am, immensely grateful to her for giving me the opportunity to narrate my story for that podcast, and grateful again that she remembered my work positively enough to invite me to be part of her show. And now that I've listened to a few older episodes and read the notes for a few more, I find myself gently wibbling to the tune of "Holy shit they've had some big name authors on this show!!! What the heck am I doing here?!" So it all feels very star-studded and amazing.

Anyways, I'll be reading a ten-minute miscellany of poems and flash fiction which aren't connected by any particular theme at all, except perhaps that they are all A. tiny, and B. hard-to-find: it's all stuff that either isn't online at all (due to being published in a print-only publication) or can only be found with the help of the Internet Archive "Wayback Machine" (due to the online publications they were published in having been discontinued). The poems are relatively new. The flash stories are relatively old, but I'm still proud and fond of 'em.

Again, the show will be TOMORROW - Wednesday, March 16 - at 7:00 PM Eastern / 5:00 PM Mountain, and, as things currently stand, I'm scheduled to read first. You can tune in live or watch it later via the YouTube channel.

In other news: I'll be appearing on Story Hour again on May 25, and (keeping things vague until contracts are signed) I appear to have sold another poetry reprint. The technical issues I lamented last time appear to be all cleared up; Space Invader has been working perfectly since it returned home. And this week is tryouts week as my roller derby league prepares a roster for our first competitive game (i.e. versus another league, that league being Pikes Peak Derby Dames of Colorado Springs) since 2019.

Tomorrow: the Friday Fictionette round-up for January. As soon after that as possible: the Friday Fictionette round-up for February. (Have I mentioned I am very, very tired of being constantly behind schedule. Well. I will soon have more time in my week to deal with things--but about that, more later.)

Heyyyy! Two blog posts in two days--spiffy. And I'm doing this even though I'm already over my five hours of writing and writing-related tasks for the day, and 4thewords.com is telling me that I've surpassed 8,000 words. It's cool. Like I said yesterday, shit-ton of overdue things. On which I am making progress. Which takes time. So.

One of the overdue things is telling you about my recent appearance on The Story Hour! That happened on May 5. I didn't manage to get a blog post out to let y'all know (other than the heads-up wayyyyyy back in January announcing that it was going to happen), but I did holler about it on Facebook and Twitter, so I didn't neglect my own PR entirely.

Anyway, when I volunteered for it back in January, I decided on which stories I was going to read--mostly based on their adding up quite neatly to no more than 30 minutes--and sat back and waited for the calendar to cycle. I'd chosen two stories, one short ("One Story, Two People"), and one very short ("The Soup Witch's Funeral Dinner"), and, knowing that they were both tear-jerkers, I intended to practice a lot in hopes of inuring myself somewhat to the feels. And then suddenly it was April 30 and I hadn't practiced hardly at all, and, well, panic.

I did manage to sneak a little practice in during that last week, and a good thing too, because in addition to the danger of crying over my own fiction, there were also voicing challenges. I'm pretty OK at giving characters distinct voices, but in "One Story, Two People" the two titular people appear at every stage of their lives from ten-year-old children to women in their 60s. So each of their voices, in addition to being distinct from each other, needs to sort of age as the story progresses. I'd love to hear what a real trained narrator could do with that story. I did my best.

And I only cried a little at the very, very end. So I guess that little bit of practice paid off.

ANYWAY. If you missed the reading live, you can go back any old time you've got an hour to spare and watch the video on Facebook. (No Facebook account necessary to view it.) I read during the second half-hour. But don't skip ahead--Lora Gray reads during the first half-hour, and you do not want to miss that. The three stories they chose to share were amazing and wonderful, full of family and transformation and identity and power both overt and quiet, lots of heart, unexpected gentleness, and rich detail you can lose yourself in. I do hope you check them out and become as much of a fan of their writing as I have.

And I hope you consider becoming a Story Hour regular, like I have. I started listening earlier in the year, feeling that if I was going to be a featured artist, I should also be a regular audience member. Karaoke and open mike etiquette, right? Be the audience you want to see. And now The Story Hour has become an integral part of my Wednesday nights. Sometimes I'll work on a hands-on project while I listen--Postcards to Voters tonight, cross-stitch or crochet or knitting other nights, and, hey, maybe I should spin, when did I last pull out the spinning wheel?--and sometimes I'll just kick back with a drink and a handful of treats in case Holland drops by. It's just such a nice way to end the evening.

And now the evening is indeed ended, more or less--and I need to sneak in some of my PT exercises before bed. Off I go!

Today had a smaller wonkiness quotient, so let's talk about why Codex is the greatest and its contests are the bestest.

Only sorta kidding. But to put it in less superlative tones: Codex is an online community for semi-pro writers, primarily in the speculative genres (see the New Member Qualifications on the linked page to see what that means). I joined shortly after making my first pro sale in 2010. To be very precise, I joined shortly after the convention at which editor Ellen Datlow hosted a reading from that anthology, in which I participated. I spent a large part of the train ride home in the lounge car chatting deep into the night with other author attendees who urged me to join Codex. And so I did.

Since then, Codex has been the biggest single boost to my writing career. Or, rather, it has represented multiple boosts. It's been a motivator, a networking outlet, an industry information warehouse, and just an all-around uplifting experience. I'm in a "face-to-face" critique group (over Zoom) because of Codex. I've found out about markets I might not have otherwise because of Codex. I've found out important things about the markets I might or might not submit to because of Codex.

And I've written a lot more than I might have otherwise because of Codex's contests.

Right now we are in week 3 of an annual flash fiction contest called Weekend Warrior. The conceit is simple. Friday afternoon, writing prompts go up. Sunday at midnight, the story you wrote inspired by one or more of those prompts is due. It must be 750 words or less. Until the next Friday afternoon--when the cycle starts over again--everyone reads each other's (anonymous) contest stories, gives each story a mini-critique (optional), and assigns each story a score from 1 to 10 (essential). It's super fun when your story scores high, but scoring isn't the real point. The point is, you wrote five new stories! And got them mini-critiqued! And now you can go revise them and start sending them out to paying markets!

Another benefit of the contest is having to read and critique some twenty tiny stories every week. I stress about it, because that's a lot to add to my weekly task list, but I really do benefit from it. Having to focus in and clearly identify what works for me and what doesn't helps me in turn to write stories that work well more often than they don't. And reading other peoples' comments directs my attention to aspects of those stories I might not otherwise have noticed.

I am doing unusually well in time management this week, yesterday's wonkiness notwithstanding. I've divided up my reading assignment into four parts, one of which I read per day. I'll be hitting the third batch tonight after this post goes up, and the fourth tomorrow afternoon after I get home from my BFR shift. I've feeling very proud of myself because of this. I can't tell you how many times I've done the whole lot in a panic during the last two hours on Friday, and then guilty about it. In my rush, I probably failed to read as closely as my fellow participants deserve. Better time-management this week means I can be so much more careful and deliberate and thoughtful about my reading--and that benefits everyone.

I am also very proud of the story I submitted for this week's consideration. I'm looking forward to what everyone else had to say about it.

I have a whole bunch of stories in my To-Be-Revised queue already, and they will stay there, untouched, because I'm not allowed to get started on them until I'm caught up on the Friday Fictionette project. (I'm sort of participating in three Weekend Warrior contests simultaneously. There's the one story I write for the actual contest, and then theoretically there's two Friday Fictionettes I'm writing a week in order to get caught up. Argh.) And yet I'm looking forward to adding five new stories to the revision queue. Well, really what I'm looking forward to is sending them out to play in various slush piles, and revision is just something that's got to happen along the way. Except I'm genuinely looking forward to getting these stories right.

So that's why Codex is the greatest and Codex contests are the bestest. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

If I'm being honest, my initial impulse is to announce these things in a manner something like this:

WHEEEEEEEE TWO ACCEPTANCES IN ONE WEEKEND and OMG I SOLD A STORY TO AN ABSOLUTE DREAM MARKET AAAAAAAAAA!!!!! I'M GONNA FAINT--

but that seems unprofessional. All the authors I admire tend instead to calmly and professionally post matter-of-fact announcements about where you can find their writing and/or hear them read their writing. So I'm going to try to be a professional about this.

*deep breath*

"Apotheosis" (poem) to be reprinted in The Future Fire - "Apotheosis" was originally published in the Summer Solstice 2019 issue of Eternal Haunted Summer. It was the first poem I wrote, and the first poem I published, after a poem drought of about twenty-five years. (I really don't know why I spent so much time not poeming. It seems rather silly of me in hindsight.) It will now be the first of my poems to be reprinted.

When will it be out? Current rough estimate is April. Emphasis on "rough." Might have a firmer estimate in a week or so. Stay tuned!

"Survival, After" (short story) to be published in Apex Magazine - This is where I start hyperventilating. Apex! Effing! Magazine! *wheeze* After I got the acceptance letter, I spent the rest of the evening emitting screams and other strange noises at random intervals, startling the bunny and making myself hoarse. It's a good thing John wasn't home at the time. I was insufferable.

And this story! I love this weird little story with all of my heart. To have it finally find a home--and for that home to be Apex! Effing! Magazine!

It began as a 750-word entry in a Codex contest, where it fared relatively well. (Codex contests are the source of a not insignificant portion of my published works. Codex is made of awesome.) Then it sat around in the "I really should revise this" pile until Shimmer Magazine announced its imminent closure and kicked me in the butt. But of course my time management is on point (that was sarcasm) and so I barely touched it until deadline day, when I pulled a five-hour forced march of panic and despair to create and at last submit the new 3,500-word draft. As history shows, it did not get accepted on that outing. The editor, who'd once sent me a revise-and-resubmit request which did not ultimately result in a publication (hey, it happens), sent me the kindest and most wistful of personal rejections, regretting that we would not get to work together on a Shimmer story after all. I regretted that too. But hey, now I had a new story ready to be submitted to all the other places!

I submitted it to twelve of the other places over the following ten to twelve months. And then I submitted it to Apex. And here we are.

This, too, I do not yet have a firm date for. I'm told it'll likely be in Issue 124, maybe 123. That's just an early estimate, though. As scheduling firms up, I'll let you know.

I will be featured in an upcoming episode of The Story Hour - One of many examples of how the pandemic is why we can have nice things, The Story Hour began as a way to pierce our shut-in, isolated bubbles with live story-sharing. They put out a call on Twitter recently for published authors who might want to participate, and, as it happens, I've had some things published recently that I'd quite enjoy reading to a live audience. So I volunteered.

Of course I had to go and choose two stories which both make me cry at the end. I knew that already, but then I did a practice read-through in order to get a concrete idea of how much time each of them takes to read, and I found out it's worse than I thought. Well. I'm just going to have to practice a lot until I get better at holding it in, or until I've read these stories enough times to have worn out the effect.

The Story Hour airs live on Facebook and Zoom every Wednesday evening at 7:00 PM PST (so 8:00 PM here in Boulder, Colorado), and if you miss an episode live you can listen to its recording via Facebook. This one I have a date for! Unless something changes, I'll be reading on May 5, 2021. It's a ways out, but I'll remind you as we get closer.

And that is my first Upcoming Author Appearances and Publications post of 2021! Ta-da!

Oh, hey, so, speaking of recovery days after insomniac nights, I had one of those on Monday night/Tuesday afternoon. And I'm not sure which is the chicken and which is the egg here, but two things were going on: it was very hot, making it difficult to sleep, and also I stayed up stupid-late reading. We're going to say that I stayed-up stupid late reading in order to not be bored while I couldn't sleep, how's that?

The book in question was T. Kingfisher's A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking. It stars a fourteen-year-old wizard whose magic only ever works on dough and baked goods. Bread, cookies, sweet rolls, great. Lightning, fireballs, not so much. Nevertheless, this turns out to be surprisingly useful in many ways, even after it becomes clear that this is a story about political intrigue and war. Also, this wizard's familiar is an omnivorous sourdough starter colony named Bob. Bob has a temper, which also turns out to be useful. Do you want to read this book? YES YOU WANT TO READ THIS BOOK.

Just try not to stay up all night doing so unless you can afford to sleep all day the next day. Because I did, and I couldn't, and, well.

It wasn't so bad. The crash didn't hit until well after my writing group's critique meeting was over. But it was bad enough. The crash hit while I was holding down a table at Collision Brewery waiting for the Volt to finish getting its leaky windshield wash fluid reservoir tank replaced. Falling asleep at a restaurant is Not Done, especially in pandemic season, so I did my best not to. I drank a lot of coffee. I tried (and failed) to work. But just as soon as I got home, and got my scheduled Bunny Care Chore done, and spent a couple minutes playing Katamari Damacy to sooth my rattled and caffeinated brain with peaceful absurdity, I collapsed in bed and stayed there until late evening.

And that was a small problem because I had a story due that night.

I'm participating in another Codex contest. This one's called Flash: Savior of the Universe. It's a lot like Weekend Warrior, in that each round consists of a handful of writing prompts and the assignment to write a new piece of flash fiction on an absurdly tight deadline, after which point everyone gets to vote and comment on the stories. But the word count for FSOTU is a touch roomier (1,000 instead of 750), and the deadline is less absurdly tight. And thank goodness I'd been actively working on my entry every day since the prompts landed, because I did manage to get that thing submitted, and even slightly polished, with about twenty minutes left before the 1:00 AM Mountain Time deadline. I wrote nothing else that day, but I got that much done. Huzzah!

But hey woo bad timing on the insomniac night and recovery day thing, yeah?

(Hey writers! Contests like these are one of many reasons why you should join Codex the moment you qualify. You get motivation to write new fiction and/or poetry. Plus you get instant feedback on said fiction and/or poetry. This can easily lead to more published fiction and/or poetry. It's a great racket! Remember my announcement that "The Ascent of Inanna" was going to see print in September? That poem originated as a Weekend Warrior short-short story. Remember "Other Theories of Relativity"? Weekend Warrior 2012. And the piece I just submitted to Daily Science Fiction, about which crossed fingers--hey, they liked something of mine before, maybe they'll like this one--that was from Weekend Warrior too.)

(Join Codex, join Codex contests, write more, publish more. That's typically how it goes. See you there maybe?)

Like every year, this weekend SFWA will announce the recipients of this year's Nebula Awards. And, like every year, there will be a weekend-long conference centered on the award ceremony.

What's different, obviously, is the COVID-19 pandemic. So for the first time, this year's Nebula Conference will be entirely online. And while it's a bummer not to get to hang out with people in person, the truth is, I wouldn't ordinarily have been there in person. A lot of people wouldn't. Travel is a non-trivial expense in more ways than the monetary. But now travel is not a factor at all. All you need is an up-to-date computer, an internet connection, and the $150 membership fee.

So I signed up and I'm very much looking forward to this weekend. But the first official activities were this past weekend. There was a reception on Saturday evening, May 23rd, to celebrate all the Nebula Award finalists (two hours of awesome audiobook narrators reading excerpts of awesome stuff!) and to give conference attendees a chance to say hi to each other, first via text chat during the reception and later during the room parties.

I went to a room party. I connected to the main Zoom room, and the hosts there redirected me, at my request, to the karaoke party. I'd never done online karaoke before. It was pretty chill. I understand there was also a bar room, where a bartender would assist you with drink-mixing instructions. I may try that one of the evenings this weekend. And of course there will be All! The! Panels! to attend. I've very excited about this.

But first I have another frustrating session of juggling sound drivers ahead of me. That's right--the sound lag static bug is back. ARGH. I discovered this during last night's Spiral Knights session (just a relaxing hour or so soloing the Shroud of the Aprocrea prestige mission and listening to the soothing sounds of the Apocrean Harvester stalking me through the graveyard) which was intolerable over the computer's speakers. Today I experimented with voice recording, and the distortion was there too. Either I get this settled, or I'm going to have to connect to the Nebula Conference on the aging Asus, and I'm not looking forward to that.

But that is not your concern. What concerns you is whether you wish to attend the Nebula Conference, attend all the panels, enjoy all the room parties, sing all the karaoke, and mix all the drinks; or simply watch the award ceremony on Facebook, which you can do for free.

Or none of the above, I guess, but that's not the fun option.

I'm still catching up on last week, and this week isn't helping. The bunnies are settling in nicely, and the water-from-the-ceiling crisis is resolved with the exception of needing to replace the vent fan--an irritation, but hardly an emergency. However, the laptop warranty repair situation is blowing up again.

The Onsite Technician came to visit today and replaced the motherboard and speakers, and for a few lovely minutes everything worked. We played and recorded sound, and there was no static. We tested the webcam, and there was no flicker. Hooray! So I signed the paperwork that said "All is resolved," the tech walked out the door... and I noticed the laptop's latest reboot cycle hadn't finished. I ran out to grab the tech before he could disappear, and he took a look. The reboot still never finished. Also it wouldn't respond to holding down the power button; the only way to turn it off was to unplug it and detach the battery.

So Thursday I get another visit from another tech with another new motherboard and maybe a hard drive too. And I'm using the backup Asus laptop because I can't even boot up the Dell in Safe Mode, with or without networking. The tech managed it once, but damn if I can figure out how. Good thing I backed every little thing up that changed since the last time I backed every little thing up, because I don't think I'm getting into that computer again without another Windows reinstall.

Nevertheless, I have been working diligently in between all these interruptions, and have at last arrived at the point where I can bring you the April 2020 Friday Fictionette Roundup!

Friday, April 3, 2020: "Real Friends" (ebook, audiobook) In which the protagonist discovers her origin story and determines to get real--and to take her best friend Samantha with her.

Friday, April 10, 2020: "Marla in Two Rooms" (ebook, audiobook) In which Marla endeavors to be a model citizen, unlike her parents and big sister.

Friday, April 17, 2020: "Human Capital" (ebook, audiobook) In which euphemisms aren't.

Friday, April 24, 2020: "She Danced for the Queen" (ebook, audiobook) In which the curse on the Beast and his castle turns out to be transferable. Now the Fictionette Freebie for April 2020!

The Friday Fictionette Project is short-short stories by subscription, a new one every first through fourth Friday (or, as we see from last weeks, a near facsimile thereof), which you can access as an ebook (HTML, PDF, epub, Kindle mobi) for $1/month and as an audiobook (mp3) for $3/month. Powered by Patreon. At the end of each month, one of that month's releases gets to fly and be freeeeeeee! to subscribers and non-subscribers alike.

All right! So. That done, my next task is to make sure not to be late with the Friday Fictionette scheduled for May 8, or at least endeavor to be less late. Thankfully, there is a fifth Friday at the end of this month, which I hope to use to get a week ahead of schedule so that weeks bearing multiple crises (or, hey, weeks with a roller derby bout at the end, assuming we get to have roller derby bouts again someday!) don't throw the whole schedule off.

Also I am participating in the latest Escape Artists flash fiction contest, which means I have a lot of very short stories to read and vote on. You, too, can participate as a reader and a voter, even without entering a story! Just point your browser at the Escape Artists Forum, register yourself an account, then go find the "Flash Fiction Contest VI - Escape Pod" in The Arcade. (As a new forum user, pay especial attention to the thread "Can't see the story groups? Post here!")

It is an anonymous contest, so I can neither confirm nor deny any guesses as to which story might be my story. I guess you'll just have to read them all!