Category Archives: Just Stuff

Just my babbling, website related stuff — or whatever doesn’t fit in the other categories ;)

Flash, Just Stuff, Writing

Funneh

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I’m working on my zombie chapbook today (mostly trying to figure out what to include). That involves a lot of looking at file names and going ‘What the hell is that?’ and then opening them to find out. It’s a bit frustrating but it is helping me clean out folders a bit. Tossing things into the ‘Trunk’ directory when their time has come and reminding me of a piece or two that really just need a little attention to be something I could be proud to submit.

It also resulted in my re-discovering this drabble. I remember writing it back when I first learned what a drabble was (in 2007!) and it was actually my second drabble ever. It falls into a third category ‘Cute, but not really worth revising’. It is worth sharing here though, I think, because it made me smile, hopefully you’ll have the same reaction.

A Long Day

Jack cursed himself for the third time and stomped angrily around the clearing.

If he returned to the ship his crew would know what a fool he’d been and wouldn’t respect him anymore. He should have brought one of them with him to help, they could they have carried the darned chest instead of he, and done the digging too.

Swearing once more Jack dropped to his knees and began to dig in the soft sand; it was going to be a long day.

“What kind of barnacle sucking, bilge-brained pirate goes to bury treasure without a shovel?!” he screamed.

On a related note, there’s nothing that’s humbling in quite the same way as reading some of your old work, is there? It’s inspiring though, to look bad and see how much I’ve improved in the past 4 years because it makes me excited to see how I’ll be writing in 2015 🙂

*posts before she can no longer resist the urge to start editing*

😉

Just Stuff, Niteblade, Personal, Pictures

Miss Me?

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Wow. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

Did you miss me?

I unplugged and went here for vacation:


(in case that slideshow isn’t working for you, check out the pictures here)

It was lovely. I was unplugged, unstressed… relaxed. I learned a few things about myself and recharged my batteries and came home.

Then I promptly got sick.

Okay, so there was a little time in between the return and the sickness, but it wasn’t long, and I’m just now getting better… and re-recharging my batteries LOL

Such is life, right?

In between my last blog and now we also put out another issue of Niteblade:

It’s a fabulous issue. I say that a lot, and I’m never lying LOL This one is great and if you like fantasy and horror stories or poems (and if you don’t why are you reading my blog anyway?) it’s totally worth a visit. Just click the picture, it will take you there.

Right now I’m trying to catch up on my essay-writing course for school and I’m starting to brainstorm some ideas for this year’s NaNo novel (I’m thinking it may be a western O_o. I know, right?). In the next couple days I’m hoping to begin working on the layout for my zombie poetry chapbook and maybe some *gasp* edits.

And I sold a poem to the new Zombiefied! anthology

Also, I have a super schmexy new pen I need to take pictures of to share with you.

Oh! And I have some friends who will be doing guest posts here too.

The point I’m trying to make is, I’m back.

And I missed you.

Just Stuff, Niteblade, Shadows

Recharging

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I feel like I need to recharge.

That’s the short version.

I don’t really want to go into the long version, not because it’s private or anything, but because, well, it’s long and requires the use of phrases I usually disdain. Phrases like ‘spiritual batteries’ and ‘technological burnout’.

The point is, I’m going offline for a while. My plan is to unplug for ten days starting on Tuesday. That means I won’t be checking or answering email (my own or Niteblade’s) or social networking sites. I won’t be playing World of Warcraft, or checking Niteblade submissions (though the slush readers may).

I’m going to unplug. Spend some time with my family. Visit a beach. Take some photographs. Maybe write, maybe not.

I’ll be back around the middle of August with new energy and a fresh outlook. I’ll be ready to roll up my sleeves for the Niteblade September issue as well as our upcoming special edition. To polish up my new sekkrit projekt, move forward on the story I’m writing with Danica and layout my zombie poetry collection. Maybe, maybe I’ll even be ready to start transcribing Shadows and doing it’s final revision before seeking representation for it. Maybe. But I’ve plenty of schoolwork to keep me busy if Shadows needs to mellow a bit longer 😉

Before I go I’m trying to get an empty inbox on at least one of my accounts — wish me luck. I really and truly need it.

Oh, and try to miss me. At least a little bit.

Goals, Just Stuff, Lost and Found

Time Management Fail

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I suck at managing my time. I really, really do. I make plans, I make schedules — they don’t work, or worse, they do for a couple days and then fall apart all around me. My Epic Win! to-do list tells me I’m supposed to make a blog post every Monday, but I’m failing at that too.

To be fair, I’ve a bunch of deadlines kicking my butt.

  • Writing, revising and polishing a short story to submit to the Whittakers every other week
  • Writing, revising and polishing a poem to submit to the Whittakers every other week
  • Writo De Mayo writing goals
  • Self-imposed June 1st deadline for this draft of Shadows

There was also a death in the family that, while I couldn’t make the funeral, did have me writing only about my deceased aunt for a few days. It was good, it was cathartic, but it didn’t help with my accomplishing other stuff.

…that sounds so callous. I hope if you’re reading this you know me better than that.

So, anyway, I’ve been busy, busy, busy. So busy that I’ve been thinking of bailing on my daytime raids, which I love. Hopefully things will come together soon though. WdM and the Whittakers, for example, don’t last forever, and progress on Shadows has been great. I just need to suck it up and keep going. In the meantime though, I’ll probably continue to be scarce around here. Thinking of interesting things to blog about is, quite simply, beyond me at the moment.

I do want to thank everyone who has taken the time to email me and tell me what you thought about Lost and Found, or added it to their shelves in GoodReads to tell the world. Thank you -so- very much. I’m writing you each back, honest, but it may take me a little bit. Thank you. Hearing someone say ‘I loved this story’ or ‘I love CHARACTERNAME’ makes me smile like you wouldn’t believe.

I <3 you all.

Truly.

 

Just Stuff, NaNoWriMo, Thoughts, Twixt

Just Keep Swimming… Just Keep Swimming…

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Ever feel like Dory? I don’t usually post videos here but I’ve had Dory stuck in my brain an awful lot so far this month, so I thought I’d share the expirience.

I feel rather a lot more like I’m drowning than swimming these days.

I’ve fallen behind on my psych course and frankly, I don’t know what I was thinking taking it in the first place. It’s a history of psych course which requires more memorization without context than my brain is used to handling. I read things, I understand them, I move on, I forget them. It’s horrible. So it’s taking me far longer to wade through than it should, but I’m still trying.

It’s also NaNoWriMo month and I’m embroiled in that again. Here’s the thing. The past few years NaNoWriMo has been a cake walk for me. I type pretty fast and if I turn off my inner editor it’s ridiculously easy for me to pump out 50,000 words in 30 days. However, I’m at a stage in my writing where I’m not interested in writing crap. I also no longer type my first drafts. Since the last NaNo I’ve switched to writing my first drafts out long hand. (I think I blogged about this before, I’m not going to go into detail about it again today). While I may be able to type a few thousand words an hour I can’t say the same for my writing. I have horrible handwriting and if I want to make it legible enough to be able to read it later, that takes time (and it’s still horrible). The process is also slower for mental reasons as well as physical — I think about what I’m writing more longhand. That makes for less crap, but more time.

Time is not something I have a lot of right now.

Danica and I have fallen behind on our poetry prompts, and I’ve only done one zombie poem since the month began.

Right now things aren’t looking good LOL

Not for NaNo, not for many of my November goals. School, obviously, has to take priority over NaNoWriMo or zombie poems (and to some extent even over my project with Dani), so I’ve been giving it most of my attention. Trying to fit other things in in between. It’s been an adventure.

I considered switching back to typing for November, but decided I’d rather keep working slowly toward having a reasonable first draft of this novel eventually than writing 50,000 words in November just to keep up a record or win a .pdf certificate I’m unlikely to even print.

Wow, I sound cynical.

I’m not… at least not as much as that sounded. I’m still hoping to cross the finish line, I’m working to re-arrange things and find some more writing time and get through this coursework too. I haven’t given up yet, but I am feeling more than a little overwhelmed.

But, I’m still swimming.

How about you?

Just Stuff, Personal

Happy Birthday! Now with cookies!

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Today is Danica’s birthday.

It’s not just any birthday though, today my little girl turns thirteen. Thriteen. Wow. So now I’m officially the mother of a teenager. And not just any teenager, a freaking awesome one.

For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure to meet Dani, let me tell you a little bit about her. Danica is clever, funny and creative. She loves rice, ice cream and tofu and up until recently wouldn’t eat a green vegetable without a significant amount of coercion. She’s a huge fan of horror movies (her favourite movie when she was 3 was Interview With a Vampire), enjoys singing, drawing and hanging out with her family. The most remarkable thing about Danica, however, is the size of her heart.

Last year at the end of the year her teacher passed out personalised presents to all the kids in her class. On each of them she’d chosen one word she thought applied to that particular person. On Danica’s she’d written “Benevolent” and I think she hit the nail on the head. Danica has got the biggest, kindest heart of anyone I’ve ever met.

I love her to pieces and I’m so very proud to be her mother, and honored to have been able to watch and help guide her as she grew up to become the wonderful young lady she is today. The teenage years are challenging ones, there is no denying it, but they are also exciting and full of potential. I have no doubt Danica will navigate through them with style and grace and continue to make me more proud than I could ever express.

I love you Goober, happy birthday!

Ever since Dani was very, very small we’ve baked together. At first she was actually so little she couldn’t sit up in her highchair without help and I’d have to tuck towels in around her to keep her upright, so she was just sort of watching what was going on. Now, she is more often than not to be the one in charge of the baking with me acting as supervisor and sometime assistant. It’s a happy coincidence then that my friend Beth is asking her friends to share some of their favourite recipes over the next few days in order to celebrate the publication of  her baking-related story in the Mountain Magic anthology coming out on the 9th.

I’m going to share my favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe. I know, that’s kinda mundane, everyone has a chocolate chip cookie recipe, but to be honest, whenever we make chocolate chip cookie dough around here odds are we’ll nom it before it ever gets baked. So what follows is a recipe I’ve found is fantastic in both the cookie and dough states. And Danica agrees. Enjoy 🙂

Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 Cup butter (salted and softened)
1 Cup packed brown sugar
1/2 Cup white sugar
1 tsp of sale
2 tsp vanilla extract (real, not imitation. It matters, honest.)
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
2 1/4 Cups of flour
Chocolate chips
Skor bits (optional)

If you can do this in a mixer than you get bonus points. I sometimes start out with the hand mixer and then switch to a fork for lack of a funtastic uber mixing machine.

Cream the butter and sugars together, then add the salt and vanilla and mix it until its fluffy. Add the eggs and the baking soda and give it another mix, then start adding the flour. Finally add the chocolate chips and skor bits if you’ve got them. Drop by the spoonful onto a greased cookie sheet and back at 350 for about 11 minutes.

Nom nom nom!

Check out Beth’s recipe at her blog: Catch A Star As It Falls.

Just Stuff, Personal, Pictures

Unemployed

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This post is kinda depressing, so I’ve decided to lighten it up with a couple cheery pictures I took of chubby little birds. Yay birds!

My ‘day job’ is writing advertising copy and descriptions. I often joke that my job is one that any monkey (who has been taught about search engine keywords) can do, but sadly my biggest clients have come to that same conclusion as well. They are automating most of the jobs I used to do and the one huge job I had which they couldn’t automate is now done. Done. This means that I am, for all intents and purposes, unemployed.

That, frankly sucks.

It especially sucks to be replaced by a computer. It really does, no matter how much I’ve joked about it in the past, the reality sucks.

So the good news is that I’ll have more time to finish up the mountainous pile of things on my neverending to-do list, but the bad news is, no one is going to be paying me as I do it. My plan is to do that; work on getting some of these things that don’t repeat (schoolwork, colaborative projects etc.) done and then, with Jo, reassess and decide on a next step.

Unfortunately all I can get in the traditional job market are minimum wage service industry jobs. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve held them before and in some ways have actually really, really enjoyed them, but meh. I’ve been spoiled. Spoiled by being about to pick my own hours, to see Dani off to school and be here when she gets home again, to have time to write in the afternoons and volunteer my time at the local elementary school. All that goes away if I take a job outside my house, and if I’m doing it for minimum wage, well, there are only a few jobs I can think of that I won’t be very resentful of. Happily, those few jobs do exist and they could be fun and have advantages of their own.

So yeah, things are pretty up in the air for me right now. I guess we’ll see what happens in a few weeks when I’ve finished some of these other things. In the meantime I’ll have a little extra time and who knows, I might even get this house clean. I won’t be washing the walls anytime soon for fun you understand, but you know, a little extra attention would probably not be a bad thing. 🙂

Just Stuff, Shades of Green

We Have A Winner!

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So, I consulted the random number generator and it chose a winner from the subscribers of my mailing list. It did, and I’m pleased to announce the Patricia W. will receive a free copy of Shades of Green just as soon as she emails me and sends me her mailing address. I have also dropped her an email to let her know.

Congrats Patricia!

Do you want to win a copy too? Like I said I’ll be running a contest closer to the release of Lost and Found to give away a copy of Shades of Green, but instead of having to like, think of something interesting to blog about, I’ve also decided to do another giveaway on GoodReads:

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Shades of Green (Paperback) by Rhonda Parrish

Shades of Green

by Rhonda Parrish

Giveaway ends September 30, 2010.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Also, if you use Goodreads and we aren’t friends there? We really need to rectify that 🙂 Send me an invite, I would love to hook up with all my friends over there.

Just Stuff

Pub Changes

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It occured to me that there have been some publication changes recently which I’ve never blogged about. I’m going to do that now, and offer up some of my thoughts about them at the same time.

One relatively big change around here is that my contract with Eternal Press recently expired and we parted company. The split was amicable and the end result is that all the rights to Sister Margaret have reverted back to me. I’m hoping, one day, to be able to put together an Aphanasian stories collection, and Sister Margaret will definitely have a place in it. In the meantime you can now read it, completely free, here. While it was originally published by Wild Child Publishing I felt that the first issue of Niteblade needed a bit more fantasy and reprinted it there. Of course once I included Sister Margaret I suddenly got a bunch of fantasy submissions, but whatcha gonna do?

I took it down while it was contracted to Eternal Press, but now I’m allowed to share it with you for free again 🙂

Also, you may remember that my zombie munchkin story “…Oh My!” was one of the runner-ups in the Dark Moon Books ZOMBIES! anthology contest. I was estatic. They’ve recently made some changes though that meant that anthology was canceled. The editor offered the story a spot in their upcoming magazine (The Dark Moon Digest), but I passed. Nothing against the editor or the magazine, which I will consider as a market for future work, I just didn’t think the magazine was where I wanted the story to go.

Originally I thought my hesitation was due to the fact I really wanted it to go in an anthology rather than a magazine, but I’ve since submitted it to a different magazine (*fingers crossed*). Truth is, something about it going into the Dark Moon Digest just didn’t feel right. I’ve ignored that feeling in the past when it came to my writing and I always regret it. This time I listened. It meant giving up a ‘sure thing’ and having to look for a new home for that story, but still, I’m glad I listened.

I’ve not always been very good at listening to that little voice inside me, but I’m getting better. You know why? Because I realised that I’ve never regretted it when I’ve listened, but I sure have when I’ve ignored it. How about you?

Just Stuff

Oops…

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I went to the Whittaker website today to see how I’d done overall and blog about it (my goals were not result-based) and discovered it isn’t over.

Wow. Oops?

Somehow I thought the last round was the final one, but I was wrong. Now, I need to come up with a story and a poem to submit before tomorrow evening. That leaves not much time for blogging.

I have a poem I editted the crap out of for the last round’s entry but because of another brain fart about time zones I submitted it an hour after the deadline and it was disqualified. I can send that for my poetry entry…but I have no such easy save for fiction.

This will be interesting…

Just Stuff, Personal

School’s Out!

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I’m supposed to write a blog today. It’s something I told myself I would do. I even, at one point, had a little list of possible topics. Unfortunately I’ve lost my list and my mind is totally drawing a blank. I’m going to blame it on the fact it’s the last day of school. Really. It’s fantastic for kids but it’s also an important day for we parent-types.

Today is my daughter’s last day in elementary school. Come September she will be in junior high.

Man, I remember being both excited and terrified to start junior high… it doesn’t actually feel like it was -that- long ago, but apparently it was long enough that now it’s my daughter’s turn.

Oh see? I just got a good blog idea, but one that deserves a post of it’s own so it will have to wait until Thursday… unless I take Thursday off (it’s a holiday in Canada).

I’ve noticed a large number of my LJ friends aren’t using LJ these days. I think it’s time I spread(ed?) my wings a little bit and made some new friends. What livejournal users do you follow you’d recommend I check out?

In writing-related news I’m slowly extricating myself from my self-doubt and other emotional baggage and will be putting pen to paper on this draft of Shadows again very soon. It’s about time, frankly.

/rambling