author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

Blogging after a period of not blogging shares a problem with revising a short story after a period of not revising the short story: It's hard to pick up where I left off. It's hard to remember where I left off. At least with blogging I can say, "To hell with 'where I left off.' Where am I now?"

So. Where am I now? Here's a quick tally.

Friday Fictionettes - All caught up except for, as usual, the Fictionette Artifacts. Of those, I'm still typing up the ones for April. Thank goodness I have very patient $5-tier Patrons. But I'm up to date on the main attraction, which is to say the ebooks and audiobooks for the four Fictionettes released in June. It took me well into Week 5 to finish that fourth one, but it's out now. Here's the June round-up:

• June 1: "Encore" (ebook, audiobook) - in which a retired magician is pestered for "just one more trick." This is the Fictionette Freebie for June 2018!
• June 8: "The Fairy Volkswagon" (ebook, audiobook) - in which an auto repair shop takes on a strange commission.
• June 15: "Language Barrier" (ebook, audiobook) - in which we are reduced to the Universes of our eyes and ears.
• June 22: "To Whom It May Concern" (ebook, audiobook) - in which we leave the Guild of Couriers the same way we arrived.

You may notice I have not got links to the HTML teaser excerpt. That's because I am no longer doing those. I began doing them so that people could get enough of a taste of the sort of things I write to be able to make an informed choice about subscribing. Except I started this project almost four years ago. I've released one Fictionette Freebie per month ever since August 2014. That's a lot of material. That's certainly enough of a free sample for prospective Patrons to decide whether getting three more of them per month is sufficient entertainment value for their dollar (or three dollars if they want the audiobook). And since I seem to fall over into Lateville on a dime, I might as well make my weekly job no bigger than it has to be.

In addition to unlocking one Friday Fictionette per month at the end of the month, I'll also continue putting the Fictionette Freebies up on my blog, on 4thewords, and on my Wattpad (admittedly, my Wattpad is a bit behind the times). But instead of posting a teaser excerpt to all those places, I'll just include the complete text in the HTML portion of each Friday's Patron-locked ebook release. It'll either be that month's Freebie or it won't.

...eh, looks like I still need to do the blog, HTML-on-Patreon, and Wattpad versions of the June Freebie. IT'S COMING REAL SOON NOW, OK?

And as for those delayed Artifacts, I'll be devoting one 25-minute session of each workday until I'm all caught up again. It's a solid plan. And those 25 minutes go real far now that this Dvorak-head can almost touch-type in Qwerty again! Here in Chez LeBoeuf-Little, we celebrate the manual typewriter.

Short Story Revisions

Last week I finally got back to revisions on "Survival, After," which, because of the aforementioned dry period, meant I had to spend at least one session just rereading what I had and remembering what my next intentions were. Right now, I'm working on a new scene in which the protagonist searches for news of her brother. I don't know what I was thinking in the first place, but I had the protagonist just up and leave town without knowing their family's status, alive or dead or other. That seems... callous? I was probably thinking something like, "I've only 750 words, I think we can assume they're dead, OK?" In the expanded and rewritten version, we don't get to assume stuff like that. We gotta show it.

I can't afford to miss a day now, not if I want to submit it to Shimmer. SHIMMER IS CLOSING ITS DOORS FOREVER AND I AM INCONSOLABLE. Their last issue comes out November 2018, and they are only accepting submissions through July 14. So. I have a really hard deadline here.

Roller Derby

Well, we're practicing again. We've rented time at a skating rink several nights a week for our WFTDA level practices. Our Phases have been going to an outdoor roller hockey rink. Various other leagues have invited us to drop in with them for practices and scrimmages, many of them at discounted drop-in rates. And a neighborhood crossfit gym has donated time for my teammate, who's a regular there, to lead sessions for us.

I just went to her crossfit session tonight. It wasn't so bad! I could do all of the things, if at a reduced weight capacity compared to some of my amazing teammates. But I'm in a little bit of pain now. There were a lot of squats. Air squats, back squats, goblet squats, and of course the squat you do for proper form in throwing the medicine ball against the wall ("wall balls"). My adductors are not happy with me right now. The left is especially grumpy. And that's before we talk about how V-ups hate me (they really, really hate me). But after several weeks of only skating once a week, I needed tonight's workout.

I also really needed the post-workout outing to Ras Kassa's with a couple of teammates. I hadn't been to Ras Kassa's since they moved out of Boulder. Hell, I wasn't acutely aware that they had moved. Far as I knew, they were just gone, and I was sad. Well, no need to be sad anymore! They're right around the corner from the crossfit gym. I can see them becoming a regular post-workout ritual. And it was so good to spend extra time with my teammates! After the barn burned, a dearth of practice locations meant seeing my teammates a lot less frequently than I'm used to. That's pretty much 99% of my social life! I'm a confirmed introvert, so my needs in terms of social life are simple and few, but what few they are are needs. Our practice schedule is still much reduced, but tonight at least was pure balm on that wound, so, yay.

Dailiness

Did kinda so-so today. Let's see how tomorrow goes.