Like All Award Ceremonies, It's Just Too Long...

I can't believe June's gone. I wanted to write stories for about 20 markets and competitions this month, but only submitted one story anywhere... and it wasn't the Bridport. Oh sad.

There were plenty of other things I didn't get done too, like posting the five awards & memes that were passed my way recently. I didn't mean to ignore them, honestly I didn't, but oops, d'oh, the days got away from me and I just never got around to it as one topic after another came up for a day's post and pushed the meme-post back a day or two...and then another day or two... and then a week had gone by, and more.

But as Skipper Penguin said to Private Penguin, 'Don't give me excuses! Give me results!' So finally, today, I unleash upon you... the Awards, the memes, and the tagging. And I'm glad to do it finally, because if you haven't discovered the folks who passed them to me yet, you're in for joy.

Tanvi at Holey Vision chose me for the Noblesse Oblige Award which is just humbling, coming from her. Almost every post she writes leaves me laughing and crying at the same time, and among all my fellow bloggers she's one of my biggest inspirations. Go visit her to learn about her latest pole-dancing class, how she teaches photography to the blind and visually impaired, and about her amazing childhood memories of Africa. She's just irresistible, and I'm sitting here waiting to read her memoirs (finally, one I'd want to read!). So I hope she writes them someday...

The rules of this one are many, and are listed on her blog (a few posts down the page.) I'm hoping this post qualifies as the brief article they want, but I have written another more in-depth one about the whole blog-thing that I hope to post soon too.

Who am I tagging for this one? You'll see, in a moment...

Meanwhile, JC at Lilacs and Cats handed me with the Honest Scrap award, which asks you to list ten things about yourself that people may not know, and pass it on to 10 other bloggers. I enjoyed reading her list so much, with some things making me laugh out loud and others showing me a kindred spirit, that I'm ashamed of myself now that it's taken me so long to reciprocate, especially because I love her blog and am amazed by her personal story (you can read a sketch of it on her sidebar). So here's my 10:

1. I'm hearing impaired: not enough to bother learning sign language, but enough that if there's any background noise at all, I can't hear the words of a conversation. People I meet in person think I'm nice because I smile and nod while they talk, but I'm really doing that because I can't hear a darn word they're saying to me.

2. The one thing that never fails to make me stand a little taller, or smile, is remembering that my father was a decorated veteran of the Second World War. I was born a few days after his fiftieth birthday, and knowing I was the fiftieth birthday present for such an amazing man just made me love myself.

3. I'm pop-culture-challenged. I haven't heard any of the songs in the current top 10, I've never seen an episode of Lost or any reality TV show; when Elizabeth mentioned that Billy Mays died I had to google him to see who he was and then I thought it was the baseball player; and I have no earthly clue how cricket is played or how American football is scored. No, I'm not from Planet Earth, and yes, I do live under a rock in a cave. Thanks for asking.

4. My favourite movie character of all time may well be David O'Hara's Stephen in Braveheart (the crazy Irishman). But, how a medieval Irishman got himself the name Stephen instead of Donnchadh or Aodh or Muirchertach or something normal, is beyond me.

5. I'm terrified of flying. I know it's the safest possible mode of transport, but every time I show up for another flight I'm ready to poop my pants. It gets worse with each flight I take, and I sense the time is coming soon when I'll need sedatives to get on a plane at all, or that I simply won't go anywhere that requires flying.

6. My favourite paperback fiction character is absolutely Sasha Misurov, the young Russian wizard of CJ Cherryh's Rusalka trilogy. I love him more with each re-reading, and I've read those three books many times.

7. I can't swim and don't really want to learn.

8. About 15 years ago, while we were living in Baltimore, we heard through the Irish-emigrant grapevine that there was an Irishman incarcerated in a federal prison three hours away. In a mad moment of solidarity, I offered myself to all the jumps and hoops of a security clearance, and managed to visit him a few times and write letters, so that he wouldn't be quite so alone. He was one of the nicest people I'd ever met, told interesting stories and shared many insights that still inspire me, and he'd sacrificed his life in a way, to the war in Ireland and a life on the run across the globe. Then he was transferred out of that prison, we left America to raise our kids nearer to family, and that was it. I missed our visits. Later I found out the CIA recognises him as the IRA's 'chief technical officer'. Holy crap. And now that he's published his memoirs I can read about all the adventures he couldn't tell me about, back then. This revelation doesn't change who he is, to me; I don't judge others. In fact I'd enjoy having another cup of coffee together---this time without the paper cups and armed guards.

9. I loved my library work, but I never want to apply for another job again in my life. Whenever I've started a new job, somebody connected to it has died within the first week. Every time. At my last job interview, I even confessed this bit of oddballity (which was oddballity in itself really), and was hired anyway. At the end of my first Friday, the staff jokingly congratulated me on not killing anybody my first week, and I laughed with them, thinking the curse had finally lifted. Then that weekend one of their students fell off a roof and died, and everyone was overly kind to me on Monday morning. Never. Again.

10. I don't wear a watch and don't carry a mobile phone; I never know nor care what time it is. Fortunately I never need to know either.


So, back to these awards...

Thom's in a class by himself today (in a quarantine kind of way) for tagging me not once, not twice, but three times in the last two weeks. Good grief.

Now I've got (most recently) the Humane Award, which to be fair I'm sharing with about 72 other nice folks Thom has chosen. "Recipients of this award should write a post about it, linking to the person gifted the award, along with ten of their own nominees.”

He's also nailed me with a Super Comments Award. I must admit that my comments on other blogs are sometimes far more interesting than my own posts, mainly because they're inspired by other bloggers...although I hope my mother isn't Up Above reading the comments I've been leaving chez Thom, because if she has, she'll likely be waiting for me at the gate with the BIG wooden spoon when my time comes. Which isn't fair, and it's not my fault that Thom had to get the last word on yesterday's post here, with that willy comment...

Anyhow, no rules attached to this one, except to pass it on to five others. More on that in a minute.

Back on the 15th of June, he also passed me the One Lovely Blogger Award. Awwww...
and I'm to pass it on to fifteen bloggers of my choice.

Jaysis. Fifteen? By my count and rule-reading for all the above awards, that puts my tagging list up to a whopping total of forty-four fellow bloggers. But in choosing my victims, my conscience can now be clear and five meme-monkeys are off my back. I have to say that being thought of and chosen by three such amazing people left me choked up and a bit embarassed--it's humbling to be included in these!

But now, the tagging.

dah-dah-DAAAAHHHH!!!

I used to take tagging at face value and choose bloggers I really thought deserved each award or meme before I passed it on... and doing that got me thanked, ostracised, cyber-hugged, vilified, and eventually threated with personal harm. So I stopped doing that... but then, it seems rude to be given a gift and just sit there on it.

Meanwhile, this blog has blessed me with some wonderful friends, a few of whom I'm met in person or exchanged e-mails with or guest-blogged for, and some of whom do me the huge kindness of visiting every post I write, no matter how short or long or profound or funny or plain dumb it is, and many of you comment every time, or sometimes, or even just once in a while.

I love you guys. You deserve all these awards (in a good way), and if you'd like any one, off you go with it and enjoy, and I'll look forward to reading your post on it. But as to obligation and being tagged, you're off the hook---even if you've only commented here just once.

The rest of you? The ones who read/visit/subscribe/follow, and haven't made any comments yet at all? You're TAGGED, baby! Feedburner's telling me I've got nearly 150 subscribers and Google says I've got 88 followers but hmmm... I'm not getting quite that many comments. So if there's honour among lurkers, you will now choose one of those lovely graphics up there and give us a post. Go on, it'll be fun. For the sake of irony and giggles, may I suggest the Super Comments Award?

Oh, and Moo-Dog. You're tagged too. I'm sure you knew you would be, and how could I disappoint you?

The rest of you taggees can wiggle off that hook by leaving a comment right now...

Ah sure, go on.

If You Read This, You Will Never Visit Me, Will You?

Such a happy morning this morning, with our friend Hayley coming to visit, after the past few weeks had kept us both too busy for much chat at all. But now she's heading off on a three-week camping trip followed by a nephew's visit, and we won't be home again until almost September, so this farewell-for-a-while visit felt special.

Extra-special, thanks to Kay. A while ago her brother sent her mother the loveliest big bouquet for Mother's Day, with all kinds of fruit including melons, grapes, and (oh wow) chocolate-covered strawberries. I'd never seen such a thing, but thought it was beautiful and ooooh, I wanted to try making one. My kids would eat fruit if it looked like that and was on sticks, surely?

Last week I got the most wonderful surprise... a package arriving from the other side of the world, from Hawaii, filled with all the special fruit-holding-sticks from the bouquet plus a pack of 100% Kona coffee, which we can't get here. Oh Kay, MAHALO!

I haven't been able to try the fruit bouquet yet, because my kids can't stop playing with the sticks... but with Hayley coming over this morning, I had a perfect occasion for brewing such special coffee, and to go with it I thought I'd make some raisin-coconut bread. So last night I cleaned up the kitchen (though couldn't manage to kill the rogue housefly buzzing round the open window, arrrrgh), warmed up the oven, pulled out the bundt pan and stirred up the batter.

While I was searching my baking-box for walnuts, I noticed that the fly had finally stopped buzzing. Oh good, I thought.

Then I looked at my raisin bread batter (let me say that again---my raisin bread batter) and thought, Oh jeez.

None of the "raisins" appeared to have any wings or legs, though that sticky batter might hide a multitude of sins and features... so with a fervent prayer to the heavenly Guardians of Cake Batter I stirred in the ginger and walnuts and into the oven it went. The slam of the oven door triggered a buzzing on the windowsill, thank goodness, so all was well.



It's Monday afternoon now, and Hayley has come and gone -- I took a photo from the table for you, there. Seeing Hayley again was wonderful, the raisin bread tasted fine and the coffee was amazing. It's been years since I've had Kona coffee, and my husband had never tried it before, so it was especially welcome to help make the morning visit special for someone as lovely as Hayley is (and she very muchly is).

The coffee was triply welcome for smelling so heavenly, as we could all hold our cups under our noses and pretend that our upwind next-door neighbour really hadn't chosen this very hour to cremate his recently deceased cow, whose fragrance of smouldering hooves came drifting through our open windows. Ugh.

Neighbour FAIL.

Then as we ate the raisin bread I couldn't help but wonder...

...what if there were two flies yesterday?

=*=

The Stinging Fly is Ireland's journal of new writing, including prose and poetry. They accept international submissions, but only from January to March, so mark your calendars if you've got something they might like. They have "a particular interest in encouraging new writers, and in promoting the short story form", and offer a small payment for accepted stories.

I follow Fried Chicken and Coffee because it's a great read and hey, "it's good for you". Yes it is! I'm still working on getting in a submission, but the novel revisions are eating my time lately. (eating... fried chicken.... hmmmmm) See the sidebar for submission guidelines.

Coffee House Press is "where good books are brewing", a small press offering literary novels and full-length short-story collections, who's willing to work with emerging writers (especially if they've been published in literary journals and the like already) who have a unique voice.

Fly in Amber is looking for good fiction in any genre for its online fiction magazine, including flash fiction. Payment is a flat rate of $10. Artwork and authors under 18 also welcome.

Dead Mule School of Southern Literature is as close as I could find to anything about dead cows, burning or otherwise. This one's a treat: look at the logo in their footer... very cute. Do read their submission guidelines for a southern-fried giggle, especially the "SLS" (Southern Legitimacy Statement) and then go ahead and send them something if you're a *ahem* 'genius with an outhouse and high speed DSL'.

Who could resist?

Havin' a Gay Old Time

So I was sitting here by myself today (pretending I was cleaning the house and packing for our trip) because my husband and kids are visiting the mother-in-law for her birthday and at least half my friends have scattered off to the Pride festival/parade in Dublin this weekend. I would have gone too, but well, how would my poor husband explain that to his family without raising some eyebrows?

After a cup of coffee, I began my housework the way I alway do: by reading everybody's blogs first, as a warm-up.

Dangerous Dan the Camera Man came to the rescue for a boring day, as he e-mailed me some photos he'd taken of our family, including me. "I like this one best," he'd written as the caption of the one here, "because I think it's how most people see you."

Aaawwww, I thought, people think of me as being that happy? That's nice. Then I read the rest of the caption: "...you know, looking down from a foot over your head."

Uh, thanks Dan.

So I thought between my captured smiliness and the Pride festival, today's fiction markets should be like, so totally gay:

Danse Macabre, that literary buffet from Nevada, is accepting submissions until 20th July for a themed issue about Stonewall. As they say on their website, "if ya gotta ask, babycakes..." Submissions are by online form: the link is in their sidebar.

Queered Fiction is looking for gothic tales of horror and romance. I'm working on something for this but struggling with it...if I can't write for it, however, I'm wanting to read it. So, let me know if you get something accepted here please: submissions are open until 31st August.

Khimairal Ink wants character-driven lesbian fiction: "let your imagination soar". They're open to most genres, and stories up to 8000 words. Pay is only $5 but they're only buying first electronic rights.

M-Brane SF is working on anthology of queer science fiction, and recently put out a call on their blog asking for more submissions. Well, you knew you wouldn't get a list of markets without one spec-fic mag, and here it is. Payment is $10 plus a share of royalties. Deadline is fast approaching: 15th July.

Expanded Horizons is (d'oh!) another spec-fic magazine, not specifically LGBT but looking for diversity in their stories and contributors. To that end, they're looking for more women, more people of colour, more gay/lesbian and asexual and transgendered people, more people with disabilities or unusual sensitivities, more magick users, more everybody it seems: VERY cool!

It wasn't until I'd read EH's guidelines some time back that I realised how much of popular science fiction is based on our average 20th century astronaut: middle-aged white dudes, who often end up getting it on with alien girlies (often blonde). Captain Kirk, Buck Rogers, Han Solo, even the Thunderbirds... Hmmm. Yes, definitely time for a change. Ursula LeGuin told some wonderful stories that explored sex/gender beyond the human experience of it: if you haven't read Left Hand of Darkness you must (IMHO). Back to Expanded Horizons, they want to see NO indigenous characters represented as 'magical savages', nor excessive violence, nor any Lizardmen, nor erotica.

...ah darn.

Guess my dirty dishes are calling anyhow.

Here it is.

If you're visiting on Saturday, you're very likely in a construction zone as I re-arrange things, and try to remember re-engage the various widgets and sidebar items. I'll miss being able to sprawl across the whole widescreen page, but now I have (ooooo...) top links, and colours I like, and a theme that complements the writing I do, which is mostly historical fantasy novels, and women's short fiction.

Like most people, I'm very clever at what I like doing, and not so gifted at other things. Techie skills? That falls right off the bottom of my not-so-gifted list, and onto my WTF-is-that-anyhow list of things completely off my radar, along with cricket scores, tofu, and Britney Spears. I've managed to customise the header for myself, but beyond that is foggy territory. You might as well sit Christopher Columbus at the controls of a Boeing 757 mid-flight. You know--good luck and all that, and where's my parachute...

The 'river' you can see in the header is a photo I took of the Atlantic tide going out from the beach at Bundoran, County Donegal. If you can't read the scrawly writing up there, don't worry, it's not that important; I just wanted some sort of 'handwriting' somewhere. And if the dividers in the sidebar look familiar (especially to fellow fantasy readers), they are indeed Tolkienesque: this template is called "Hobbit" and was created by Arcsin, if you'd like to snag it for yourself.

Let me know of any problems you're having with it: broken links, missing links, readability, or if you just plain love it or hate it. I did take the precaution of saving the whole old template (eerrr, somewhere...) so if this doesn't work out, all is not lost.

So, what else is new? Well I'm so glad you asked...

New Love Stories publishes short romance fiction: contemporary, historical, paranormal, inspirational, whatever, "as long as love/romance are the main thrust of the story". Their words, not mine... just had to share that for the giggle. 3-5K per story, pays well.

New Writing Scotland publishes works by writers who are Scottish by "birth, upbringing or inclination". Hope, you're covered! All forms invited, but you're going to have to buy a stamp: no fax or e-mail submissions accepted. Get it in by September and you might have £20 per published page in your pocket. To get to the submission guidelines, click the link in this paragraph, then on that page click 'publications', which will include NWS with a link next to its cover for submissions.

NewFoundSpecFic is looking for emerging and aspiring writers, and still pays them which is wonderful. If you're under 13 (bless) you need your parents permission. Can I just say I love this publication? If you've got a short story, article, poetry or artwork you think they'd like, hurry because the current submission window is closing on the 6th of July.

New South doesn't offer monetary payment, but hey, South. This is Georgia State University's Journal of Art & Literature (for those of us not resident in the USA, this is Georgia-north-of-Disneyworld, not Georgia-next-to-Russia). If your submission of poetry, prose, or visual art is accepted, you get a bio printed and 2 contributor's copies.

Best New Writing (the Eric Hoffer Award) offers annual prizes for published writing, including short prose, small press publications, and self-published books. Information and links for nominating are on the website.

Friday Flash 55 and Acts of Kindness

"So," she said, climbing the bus steps Friday, "You're writing a novel."
"So," he said, as the doors hissed shut, "You live with your parents."
She blushed, dropping coins through the slot.
"My father has cancer," she said, "my mother can't cope."
He turned away, watching traffic in the side mirror. "Need help?"
"You wish."


(continued from last week as usual)

Friday Flash 55 is hosted by Mr. Know-It-All: click here to find out more about it, read some great stories, and join in!

If you can write tightly, and live in Ireland or the UK, Global Giving is hosting a wonderful competition about Acts of Kindness that have happened while we travel, as told in 100 words or fewer. Flash non-fiction, so. Prizes include a trip for two to visit a Global Giving project in a country of the winner's choice (there are projects in Madagascar, Kenya, Russia, Japan, Thailand, Israel, Brazil, Italy, all over really) plus a number of goody bags, and it's free to enter.

Next week I'll return to the flash-fiction-market-alphabet, with D.
Tomorrow, this blog's new look & links...if I can get the new template to work that is...

Just Like Starting Over

Today was our son's last day of school for the summer, and therefore the official beginning of our summer holidays.

We're so rural that it was also his last day in the 'junior' side of the schoolhouse, the schoolhouse having only two rooms to it. It's hard to believe that he's been going to classes there for four years already, or that it was so long ago when nearly ten of us---parents, teachers and professionals---sat in conference at his special-needs preschool to decide what to do with him when he was too old to return the following September.

We had two choices: should we send him to the special-needs school next door, where there were other autistic children and teachers with appropriate training? Or should we send him to the local mainstream school, which could give him some support he needed, but where he'd inevitably feel 'special'...probably not always in a good way? We were torn, and I was heartbroken at his leaving such a wonderful pre-school that had worked miracles for his learning and behaviour. His teacher shed a few tears at the meeting, and I drove my fingernails into my palms trying not to cry. We kept in touch over the years--Christmas cards, school photos in the mail--but I missed them all, that summer.

By then, we had opted for mainstream school. There were a lot of reasons we decided that way, and now as our son finishes the year with good grades and prepares to go to the 'senior' side, we feel that for him and for us, it was the right decision. Still, the work and the worry that went into these years, and the second-guessing our choice a thousand times, and supporting him where a mainstream school just couldn't, well, it all wore us out. I feel as though I've been running an uphill marathon day and night for over four years, and now, finally, perhaps I can look up, exhausted as I am, and see how beautiful that "FINISH" banner can be, as I prepare to collapse over the line with or without the Gatorade, and rest at last.

Oh look at that...that Finish banner actually says "START".

Ah crap.

Because here's Miss Baby heading to the car this morning, on her way for her audition, er, I mean first visit, to the very same special-needs preschool her brother attended all those years ago. The visit itself was wonderful; there were hugs and squeals of welcome and almost-tears a few times as we remembered Boy's attendance here and watched the new children, and saw how the school had changed rooms or added something new.

Baby loved it and settled right in with the kids. Seeing her so excited, and after such a marvellous welcome, I think I might even be able to find the energy from somewhere, to keep running past that Finish/Start banner and do it all over again with another child after all.

We'll call it a victory lap.

=*=*=

On a day like this, here's what caught my eye, fiction-market-wise:

Etchings will publish an issue titled Love and Something later this year; guidelines are on the other end of that link. Successful stories are paid $75 (Australian) and a contributor's copy.

A Golden Place is currently accepting stories on "the butterfly efffect": that's a tiny detail with big and unforeseen results down the line. More information is on their website. This market is somewhat new I believe, and doesn't pay, but they will publish a bio with your work if it's accepted.

Odyssey (for kids) has a future issue titled Fly Me To The Moons. Yes, please. Never mind that fiction needs only be 1,000 words and pay is 20-25c per word...getting paid like that would put me right over the moon. Click here for guidelines to the other kids' publications in the Cobblestone Press group.

Moondance celebrates creative women, and is planning an upcoming theme of Change. Well, in fact it's listed as "Chage", but I'm somewhat sure we're to read it as "Change". Deadline 15th September.

Drops of Crimson will publish a December issue on the theme of Angel Wings. With zombies still on my mind, you weren't going to get away without a horror publication in the list, and I must admit the possible applications of an 'angels wings' theme on the horror genre intrigue me. No pay here, but author's bio provided.

=*=*=

Meanwhile, I've decided to turn my back on all this school-related stress and head for the hills, literally. We've pulled out the luggage and booked the dog in the kennel: it's going to be an Appalachian Summer. So if you live in West Virginia or nearby and want a visit from a crazy person and her family this summer, hey just say so. If there's real fried chicken involved, I'm all yours.

SWZ Seeks Brainy Creative Types (Zombie Romance Help Needed)

Zombie Squad: We make dead things deader.

I kid you not: there is a real live Zombie Squad in the world—-and I mean the real world. I ran into this while trying to find some information on just what zombies are, and what zombies really do, and absorb a bit or two about the whole zombie culture. (Is there one?)

Anyhoo, the Zombie Squad turned out to be a collection of highly trained teams making the world a safer place for all of us, by preparing to provide organised resistance against a future Zombie apocalypse...stay with me, stay with me... by offering survival skills training to the public, and raising funds for disaster relief charities. That's superb.

Honestly -- how delightfully more interesting than just holding out a bucket collecting pennies for the Red Cross, or running/walking a marathon. Community service with a lovably eccentric personality? —this is my kind of group. Zombies still aren't my 'thing' (though I did like Johnathan in Piers Anthony's Xanth series), but now I admit they've got my attention.

I'll also admit that I still have no idea, as to how I'll fit them into the Flash Friday episodes, which, you may remember, are supposed to be a romance story. It was my nuttiest daughter who suggested zombie involvement in the first place, and the resulting applause in this blog's comments is what convinced me the FF romance will indeed get zombies... but now what?

Will the hero or heroine be revealed as a zombie-in-disguise, and what would happen to the other one? Will we have the old-fashioned classic shambling hordes, or a surprise sneak-attack during a date at the drive-in theatre? What makes our zombie different?

Seriously, I'm asking for help here. Should we bring the long-threatened zombie apocalypse down on their first kiss? Hhmmmm...

(Shh! I think I heard one!)


If you'd like to read and/or write stories about zombies and their various relations in the horror genre:

Tales of the Zombie War is accepting submissions but their needs are very specific: be sure to read the guidelines.

Strand Mystery Magazine publishes short mysteries as well as suspense and supernatural stories. Weirdly in this day and age they want submissions by snail mail, but they pay $25-150 for publication rights, so perhaps it's worth the paper and stamp.

Rymfire Books is accepting anthology submissions on the subject of Vermin, and novella manuscripts for which they pay $25 plus royalties on sales. (Is anyone else raising an eyebrow about the name of this press? Or is it just me...? Maxi, any comments?)

Murky Depths. Look for the submission guideline link in the left sidebar; the address bar doesn't change when you click. They're looking for Spec fic and horror on the darker side of human nature. Would that be, perhaps, like Ken when someone rattles a packet of mints, or Thom when someone goes for his remote control? (We all know the lady commenters here don't have any dark sides, even those whose daughters have been zombies and lived to tell the tale. *ahem*)

Nossa Morte's requirements are for stories with characters to care about, and new territory: read the guidelines on its livejournal page here.

Mo*Con Anthology guidelines are here. "If you’re unfamiliar with Mo*Con, you’ll be operating from an extreme disadvantage. It’s the annual horror convention, named after myself, that revolves around discussions of spirituality, writing, and social issues. Horror, too often, has been thought of as the non-thinking genre, home of the 'monsters in the dark' with little to offer in terms of depth. Mo*Con defies that image of the genre. Its themes so far have covered spirituality, race, gender issues, art, and love."

Grave Tales is looking for pulp horror for a comic book format, oh fun, and artwork submissions. Professional rates; there are submission guidelines for several publications all on the one page, but Grave Tales is listed halfway down.

Better than being six feet down, I suppose...

Meanwhile, I'm off to sign up for the Zombie Squad. Seriously.

What Does Your Blog Mean To You?

Well, that's a question that percolated in the back of my mind while writing the Blogiversary post on Saturday. I've had plenty of habits and hobbies that didn't last a year, but this blogging one just keeps going. So it surely means something to me.

Of course, it means a lot of things, and I've been working on a longer post about that that might eventually see the light of day. I started blogging as a documentation of sorts, for the change in direction my writing was taking; I also looked forward to practicing my writing skills and becoming disciplined enough to do it daily. The blog filled those purposes, certainly.

But I didn't anticipate how wonderful being read would be, or how fun it is to read your comments, or to discover other bloggers and their worlds and insights and inspiration. That's been worth ten times anything else, especially after living for years isolated a hundred miles past the last outskirts of the boonies. So when Sylvia commented a few days ago to say "what a change it has made in my life", I thought I might know what she was talking about.

Which is why this news is so interesting: Blogger Buzz is asking for stories about our blogging experiences, to help celebrate Blogger's 10th anniversary. All you need to do is write a post saying how much blogging has meant to you, then follow that link up there and read the instructions. They'll be choosing their favourite stories to share.

Nifty!

Now, back to zombie-research (I cannot believe I'm researching zombies...) and fiddling with new blogger templates. Yep, the bare white's making me restless, and I'm yearning for top links and pretty things. So if the blog changes suddenly again, I'm sorry...

Again.

If I pick something you don't like, or if the print's too small or the colour unappealing or well whatever, feel free to clamour for a change back. You know how fond I am of clamour.

Happy Father's Day

We had a great time Thursday night. We told Queen Teen to keep an ear out for her sleeping sister and brother and an eye on the house, as we'd be going out... to, uh... beat the crowds by shopping at night, yeah, at the 24-hour supermarket in Enniskillen, doncha know.

She looked us over. "You're not going to watch Star Trek again??" Eye-roll.

No, no, no NO of course not. We're out of um, milk... and mayonnaise, I think. I could do with some olives. It has NOTHING to do with Star Trek. Eye-roll back at her... honestly. We're far too advanced in our middle age to see a film this late in the evening; we'd only fall asleep. We're going (we said very firmly) to Asda.

We were the only ones in the theatre that evening; we had the whole thing to ourselves and the darling projectionist didn't even bother with previews. Woo hoo! It was superb. No women pushed past our knees for a bathroom break at the most heartstopping moments, and no men rustled crisp packets too loudly at weepy romantic ones. Nobody stared when we crouched behind seats shooting finger-phasers back at attacking Romulans ("phdew phdew"), and nobody turned to frown at me when I jumped up shouting "Get him Sulu!!"

Brilliant!

"Except," I had to finally say, on the way out the door (bloody projectionist having cut off the credits), "for that goofy-ass Star Wars ending." I never liked the ending of Star Wars, and I didn't like seeing it stuck in the end of a Star Trek.

Hubby was suddenly all-picture-no-sound for the drive home. D'oh! How could I forget that I'd married a Star Wars fan?

It's not something you'd usually forget, after all. We've got a similar marriage that a Steelers fan would have marrying the daughter of a Dallas Cowgirl. A Manchester United devotee would feel the same, marrying into a West Ham family. A Coca-cola drinker knows what's coming when he's served Pepsi when he goes to meet the parents... It's the elephant in the room you know, the awkward moment always waiting to happen.

"I can't believe," he finally said, "that with the hundreds of DVDs our kids have, we've never gotten the Star Wars collection in." Well, at least he was speaking to me again, sort of. And now I can be cheerful this Father's Day morning even before coffee, because when the baby takes him by the hand to pull out Dora 'Splorer videos, there's going to be a box-set-sized wrapped-up present hiding in the video cabinet, and now you know what's in it.

Happy Father's Day!

Chicken Soup for the Soul accepts stories on a continual basis. For fathers or those wishing to write about fathers, upcoming titles include Thanks Dad: "We are looking for stories of thanks from “children” of all ages about their dads. These stories of innumerable joys and challenges will touch your heart, make you laugh, inspire you and remind you that it doesn’t matter how old you are, the job of a parent never ends. The deadline date for story submissions is June 30, 2009." Check the guidelines here.

(The very similar collection of A Cup of Comfort books isn't currently looking for anything Dad-specific but does want stories about couples, and golfers. Seems there could be an overlap opportunity.)

If you have a full-blown novel ready but no agent, there's Father's Press which is looking for works that are 'not contrary to conservative Christian beliefs'. Well I can keep looking then—-they also don't want fantasy or science fiction—-but in addition to novel manuscripts Father's Press will also look at non-fiction proposals. The link takes you straight to their guidelines page.

Interactive Dad accepts nonfiction articles for its magazine. "We’re looking for subject matter that appeals to dads between 24-40 years old that can’t easily be found elsewhere." Like how to keep the TV remote away from the kids, or scrape Bob the Builder stickers from the car you're trying to sell, or remove peanut butter fingerprints from your favourite CDs?

Heart Touchers is a publication distributed by e-mail; they don't pay for contributions but each author does get a bio where a link could go, if you're looking for exposure/publicity and have something you'd like to share.

Children, Churches & Daddies is a literary art magazine looking for the "intelligent and powerful"... but NOT anything about children, churches or Daddies. Uuhhh...ok. While you're there, you can consider responding to their call for entrants for their "Sexy Poets" 2010 Wall Calendar. Uuhhhh, ooookaaaay....

Of course, I guess there must be sexy-poet Dad out there somewhere...

A Blogiversary Link Festival

Welcome to my 282nd post. Ok, I know that doesn't seem so special.

But to be accurate, this must be more like my thousandth post altogether, as this is one of nine blogs I've started in the past five years. Six have been abandoned or deleted before this one was even begun, one year ago today. I've never reached a blogiversary before, so I feel this must be an achievement of sorts: me reaching a second June 20th with the same URL.

And after a year's gone by, I'm sorry to see that my first and all-time favourites, Catherine and Moo-Dog, don't post half so much as they used to when I started---though whenever they do it's still the first place I go to read. Peggy and Mimi, I know you're busy but I'm putting you on that list too: post more and let me know how you're doing! Fortunately Brighid has just come home and I'm looking forward to her photos from her holiday. (Hint!!)

I feel quite smug knowing Radge's real name, Baino's too, while I line up my voodoo dolls here wishing both of them the best of luck job-wise. And I know Grandad's name too, which is on his book that I still haven't finished yet because my family keeps 'borrowing' it. Must be THAT good.

Ken and his stories have kept me going when I often wanted to quit, then Hope found me and feels like a long-lost twin: I could never quit now.

After all these months, only Maxi now knows my secret shame, that even my husband's not privy to, and Elizabeth knows even more than he does (and Truman has photographs? Oh no!) If the reverend knew English Mum had such company in Cavan, he'd be quite shocked.

When I posted a few tributes to Hawaiian gods (and half-naked kahiko hula dancers, admittedly), in the sidebar and then in that often-visited no-pants post, I was afraid that Kuka'ilimoku would be offended by my disrespectful haoli ignorance, but instead he seems to have led me to wonderful Hawaiians I couldn't do without now including Kay, Gigi, Quilly and Thom. Who knew that grumpy-looking naked war gods could be so gosh-darn sweet?

Sylvia, Sandy and Chimera always inspire me and that mightily; Granny Sue soothes my West Virginia cravings (and so does Yeti though he's a bit South of there), and Ashley understands all my staying-home-with-three-kids blues.

Recently Mr. Know-it-all has me writing flash fiction for the first time in my life, the Very Hungry Caterpillar has me writing for kids, and K8 the Gr8 now makes me wonder if I want a tattoo (do they come in 'painless'?) . PJ Lynch and Niamh Sharkey make me wish I could draw better (and I am practicing more) while Rachel inspires me to go hear poetry in Scotland...I'm game for it, but when shall I go?

I'll plan that trip for my second blogiversary, perhaps. Because I might even make it to that, who knows?

And now, all those linkies have me pooped, so I'll put off listing fiction markets until tomorrow. In celebration of the day that's in, I believe I'll spend the rest of my afternoon in search of cake...

Happy weekend everyone, especially to all you Dads out there!

Friday Flash 55 #3 and the C-markets

While I continue my research on zombies and the effects of automotive crash injuries on the undead (thaaanks guys), here's my latest Flash 55. Details about the game and some flash fiction markets follow, as usual.

Four of them, one each side of a square kitchen table, one mug apiece.
"Milk and sugar?"
"Thanks."
Her mother smiled: nice young man...
Her father, frowning: ...in my house.
"So," Father said, "What do you do?"
"I'm in transportation," said Owen, "researching my latest novel."
"Mystery?"
"So far."
Annamarie laughed at least; he smiled.

The first two 'chapters' of this were posted on the two previous Fridays so if you like you can click the links in the sidebar; sometime this week I'll organise a link list for the whole story to update as I go. To join in the fun, write any story you like in 55-words(no more no less) then tell Mr. Knowitall, a.k.a. G-Man by leaving a comment on his own Flash-55 post today. (Posted even though his daughter is getting married today, 19th June 2009... CONGRATULATIONS!)

Meanwhile, we're up to "C" in the flash fiction markets:

The Chatahoochee Review makes the list partly because it's a great publication, partly because Chatahoochee is just so much fun to say, and partly because their blog is called (I kid you not) Pass the Hooch. Amen my brother. The submissions link is in the sidebar.

Cabinet des Fées is an online journal dedicated to the fairy tale; you've got until July 15th to submit fiction or poetry for the autumn issue.

Chicago Review accepts poetry, fiction, and book reviews, and would like very nice on a writer's resume. That's right you guessed it, they don't pay. They will however send you several copies of the issue you're in, and a full year's subscription. Well if you want to call that payment, go for it.

Cat Tales is looking for fantasy fiction featuring cats (obviously). No talking cats please. Other publications are on this page as well, including Weird Tales and Juno Books.

Cricket is BIG, and for kids, and a great market to break into if you can, paying good rates.

Good luck if you submit something out in the big world, and meanwhile, I'm off to see what my other 55-ers have written today.

Tomorrow, a SHOCK announcement. Really, I'm shocked. Wait 'til you hear...

#facebookfail

I'd like to make a public apology to all my Facebook Friends who have found me a sorry excuse of a Facebooker and unworthy of the title "Friend"; no I don't accept all your invitations, you're right; yes I know I never update my status and it's often a week old or more; no I don't write on your walls as often as your other friends, mostly because I forget to even show up there, and I am sorry.

I could make the excuse that the site takes forever to load on this rural dial-up, which is true... but I can't deny (without lying) that I would be no better at Facebooking with a faster connection. Perhaps my real reason is that I'm just feeling too old to learn all these new worlds pushed on me. I still can't figure out how to fit my 45's into the tiny holes of an MP3 player, I have no idea how to connect the wires of our new satellite dish onto the roof antenna, my eyes cross just looking at MySpace, and Twitter? That one makes the least sense, I mean, what is it??

At least there's been the comfort in knowing I'm not the only one in this predicament. Along with the stress of trying to make the new toy work, is the angst of letting down all the nieces who want to give me a new virtual pet (does it poop?), all the fellow bloggers who want me to discover my inner Hobbit through some online quiz I'm frankly afraid to take, and all the total strangers demanding to be my friend when I don't know these people from Adam's off ox.

And, after all that, I could also make the excuse that I just don't have time to be fiddling with Facebook at all, much less learning the ins and outs and tools and etiquette and whole culture of the thing: that's also true. I just don't have much free time and I'd rather spend it writing my blog, and reading all yours, including my ol' buddy Elizabeth's, who hasn't been posting much at all lately.

It's that Twitter, I'm guessing---that's what to blame. She'd mentioned joining Twitter just before she disappeared, and now she's GONE from my blogging world: no more posts, no more comments here. She's been drawn away into the Dark Side, obviously, and is now somewhere having a lovely time following a whole new crowd of people, so absorbed in tweeting and twits and twats and whatever they've got, that she's forgotten all about her blog and maybe even *sniff* her ol' buddy too.

Well, not so fast, chickie.

Remember who followed you when you went cycling down the killer hill near your house, although my bike had no brakes on it? And who kept paddling your canoe until we'd nearly reached open ocean together (or felt we had)? Who couldn't be put off barefoot chases behind your house, even after the tapioca event?

Yup. I couldn't let you twittle tweety twisty do anything, without me along.

So, as of noon or so today, I'm on Twitter too, or I'm in it, or whatever you say... hanging back in the doorway and blinking and hoping to adjust, and praying someone comes out of the darkness, takes me by the hand, and helps me through this. What does it do?

If you're on Twitter too, please leave a comment here telling me how to find you there, and I'll follow you (is that what you say?) forthwith. PLEASE. Guys, you've got to help me fail less spectacularly in this endeavour, than at Facebook.

Anyone?




Original cartoon is a medieval illustration from Dover Clipart, defaced with my captions. (Sorry about that.)

Death of a Snailman

Behind the hospital where I went yesterday, is a famine graveyard.

Ireland is loaded with such memorials of course, having lost a quarter of its population during those terrible years, but each one represents so many people that I had to go pay my respects. When I visit these graveyards I can't help but think not only of the people who lost their lives, but of all the family and friends they left behind, and then all the people who don't exist among us today because they might have been a future child of one who died. Who knows what heroes and geniuses and saints were lost?

When I arrived, I had the place to myself. That's typical. Although there were benches aplenty for people to enter the memorial garden to sit and think, and remember, and perhaps contemplate history's lessons for our own futures, the sad truth is that most of us never take up such offers. We carve words on stones and raise statues and flowers to do the remembering for us, and walk away. Human nature, I suppose, and perhaps it's wise. Anyhow, those empty benches struck a chord in me, so I took a photo of them for Wordless Wednesday's entry on my photoblog tomorrow.

Then I opened the gate and walked in, wanting to pay a silent tribute for a few minutes to those who'd been lost; I tried not to think too hard on the irony that in a country where so many people had died of hunger, I still struggled to lose these last ten fifteen ok, twenty pounds. I thought there must be a poem in there somewhere, of 21st-century obesity strolling through a graveyard of those who'd starved.

I took this photo, liking the close-up of the living rose in focus against the backdrop of the lonely gravemarker in the distance, and stood up, then stepped back.

CRACKcrunnchchkkchhkchhkkkkrrrch.

Thinking I'd stepped on glass, or who-knew-what, I looked down to see an escargot a snail smashed and smeared across the footpath.

So if you heard distant screaming and shrieking and wailing yesterday, no matter where in the world you are---yes, that was I. Sorry about that.

There's just something about the slime and gooiness of a snail or slug, combined with that nerve-jangling crunching sound it had made, that gave my feet (it seemed) a life of their own, and while screaming I found I had unthinkingly retreated away from the corpse and the scene of the crime, onto the grass, where my feet were wiping themselves as frantically as Lady MacBeth once scrubbed her hands. Then I remembered who slept (hopefully peacefully) beneath that grass, and I was screaming all the way back to the stone footpath again where my victim lay waiting in all his broken ooziness.

Eeeeewwwww.

I looked back across the grass. From a small distance across the lawn, the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph and a tiny angel all watched me with their concrete eyes as I stepped silently around what was left of God's Creature there on the path and simply left, shutting the gate quietly behind me. What poetry could be written about such a death, in such a place, of the delicate life crushed under the heel of an oblivious greater power? I leave it to poets greater than I to eulogise the departed....you know who you are.

Meanwhile, I'm finding a small consolation in thinking that the rose might thank me anyhow: the snail was headed her way.

No no no no no.....

If you're playing My World Tuesday and looking for my post, it's over here on my photoblog, showing my hydrotherapy pool (isn't that exciting?? Who knows, maybe we're swimming nude, go look...) Mr. Linky is obviously smoking crack again this week; he's just not right these days.

I'm not posting here today meanwhile, because I'm working on writing up a few parables for Paraclete Press's contest. It's easy: "craft your own, original parable, communicating truth from your own life of faith. Parables may be anywhere from 100 to 1000 words in length. Send your entries to ellen(at)paracletepress.com no later than August 1, 2009. All entries will be read and judged by Peter Rollins and winners announced on or before September 1, 2009." More information is on their website of course: Paraclete Press.

Dunno if I'll get mine finished and submitted in time (that's always the most difficult challenge) but I am writing them.

Tonight. Now.

So I'm busy; no time for posting.

Have a photo instead. I took it today:

Sunday, Silent and Grey

Sunday, ugh.

When I was a tiny thing, Sundays were marvellous. Sunday meant Sunday Drives, those long motorcar adventures with a picnic box in the back seat and nowhere in particular to go where you'd always see something new, take a few family snaps from the camera (back when it had a 24-photo film cartridge that lasted a year, and a clip-on disposable flash: remember that smell?). We'd stop for an ice cream somewhere and on the way home, watching street lights go by, I'd eventually tip over to sleep on the back seat. Hey, no seat belts in those days either.

Then my parents packed me off to College, and Sundays became recover-from-the-party day. I'd tell you more about those, but weirdly I don't remember any of them.

Later, it was the day off work, spent in bed with a big newspaper and coffee and a television remote that eventually I learned to share, in spite of the prevalence of (bleughh) sports on Sunday television.

Then, it became a day to practice being a witch or a Buddhist or a Druid or a genuflecting and devoted Catholic, depending on what spirituality I was exploring at the time. But now I've got three kids, one with ADD and two with autism, and for everyone's sake Mass is now tackled one parent/child at a time. So, very often on Sundays I've been home with two playmates and toy cars, dollhouses and lift-out puzzles. Not so bad really.

Now, alas, Sundays have gone quite quite bad, becoming the day I need to pedicure my feet, shave my legs, condition my hair and moan loudly about the continuing presence of the extra fifteen pounds I'm carrying, all in preparation for Monday's Hydrotherapy appointment, which in a cruel twist is timed to coincide with my daily nap.

Honestly, I'm 42 now. Married. Work-at-home writer-mom, living on the backside of the remotest hill in all Ireland. Shave my legs?? This is so wrong.

So. Wrong.

For all the woes heaped on me by this Fibromyalgia lark, at least it's providing me with one thing (besides bald legs and sanded-down heels). I'm happily eligible to enter the Arthritis Care creative writing competition before the 30th of this month. The theme this year is "Holiday from Pain", and that's stumped me, for now. I nearly asked Himself and the kids for a few ideas, but then remembering their car-wrecking zombies, thought better of it. I'm on my own here.

But, if that doesn't turn into anything, there's also Word Gathering, which accepts writing from folks with disabilities, though they don't pay. And there's Arthritis Today, which needs articles mostly but will also look at personal essays and poems, preferring queries to manuscripts.

Kaleidoscope, the magazine of the United Disability Services, has put out a call for submissions whose theme is "Journeys of All Kinds": fiction, essays, poems all welcome, and there's plenty of time left with an August deadline.

Coping with Cancer accepts personal experiences on coping with cancer. They don't pay, but articles are very short (775) , the magazine is read by over half-a-million people bimonthly in waiting rooms across North America, and they do allow an author's note at the end where presumably you could mention your own book or website. I'd call that fair enough, especially if you're looking to earn tearsheets or publicity.

Closing the Gap reports on assistive technology, and accepts article submissions. Dang...personally I think this would have been a superb market for short science fiction and other speculative genres, inspired by the same cause. Granted, they might have drawn a lot of Bionic Woman and Robocop ripoffs, but you know, the best stories just might have inspired ideas in someone else who could do something to make a new piece of assistive technology possible. Or it could encourage regular readers to stretch their imaginations to solutions, along with providing an entertaining escape. But, the editors want nonfiction articles only, it seems. Anyhow, they provide author's guidelines on the website, offer a free sample of the magazine to help you, and if you look at the right sidebar you'll see a link to an author's checklist.

The Healing Through Creativity event in Appalachia is another place for your poetry, creative writing, artwork and more, all from (or supporting) survivors of trauma or abuse. I wonder if they'd take a collage made from leg hair, shredded appointment cards and chlorine residue?

Dialogue magazine needs very short pieces for their magazine on living with a visual impairment. No fiction or poetry it seems, but plenty of else, with departments including personal essays, tips, and anecdotes. The publication is released in large print, braille, cassette and e-mail. Payment is $15-35. (The page hasn't been updated in some months, but provides an e-mail for enquiries.)

Well, there you are. Plenty to do and write on a Sunday, which beats walking slowly over wet sand anyhow, or shaving your legs.

At World's End ... news at 11

Father's Day is coming. This calls for a manly present, of course: something sportical, or automotivational, or gadgetological. But what?

I had no idea. Then, yesterday our kids managed to break our ninth DVD player, the one we purchased for a whopping €20 at Tesco during a Christmas clearout mid-January. Since then it must have played a thousand renditions of Disney's Cars and Sleeping Beauty, hundreds of Red Green episodes, a few viewings of Galaxy Quest and As Good As It Gets, and endless runs of Star Trek's Original Series intermissioned by the occasional Red Dwarf episode, all displayed on the spare 15" computer monitor that we rigged up to the cheapo DVD player.

What more would anyone need, after all, for cinematic bliss?

Why, a brand new 32" slimline widescreen TV with Freeview and a brand-new multiregion DVD player to go with it, obviously. Irish made, and On Sale.

Happy Father's Day, darling, a bit early this year.

The kids are happy, but I fear that for me the world has ended---all my spare time and much of my working time about to be sucked irretrievably away into a vortex of sitcoms, evening news, Oprah, and History Channel televisual events. Oh God.

My hope lies in the DVD player, for now I can expose myself (easy...) to a wider range of films beyond the shortlist of favourites that currently fill our TV cabinet. Lucky me, I have Ken Armstrong to advise me with his good taste, and now Colonel Popcorn has arrived to keep me laughing as I decide which DVDs to try next.

Colonel Popcorn, get it? ... Colonel, kernel...? (OK, I admit I didn't get it for five minutes after I first read it. Obviously I need to watch more comedy.)

As usual, neither of us could figure out how to set up and configure all the new wires and machines and remotes, so we did what all 21st-century parents do: we let our three-year-old do it.



So. Like movies and television? Write movies and television?

As I mentioned a few days ago, Fox is currently accepting scripts for a comedy pilot, with a $25,000 grand prize.

Scriptapalooza hosts annual writing competitions for TV (details here) and for film (details here). They're currently judging this year's winners it seems, but that gives you plenty of time to prepare for next year's deadline, right?

Gotham Screen 2009, New York's international Film Fest, is currently calling for submissions for autumn screenings.

For more filmmakers' contests, try Filmmakers.com: their list of contests is here.

Friday Flash 55: Chapter 2

Four blocks more; only the wipers spoke: swish thump...swish thump.

"Here," she said, "the white house."

He pulled in, noticed the sign on the gate.

"O'Connor?"

She sighed at the inevitable. "Annamarie."

"Owen," he said.

She wondered what to say next.

Thanks for the ride, but go away? My husband's a serial killer?

...

"Coffee?"


---

I'm making it up as I go now, pure fiction. I asked my teenage daughter and my husband for help last week, at the supper table.

"I want it to be a romance," I said, "because I started it with how Mom and Dad met. But now I don't know what to make these two do. Any ideas?"

Oh, plenty ideas... mostly involving car wrecks, murderous ninjas, and zombies. I think I might be on my own here; or, expect ninja zombies to wreck their car shortly.

Anyhow, to join in the fun, write a story in 55-words(no more no less), post it on your blog, then tell Mr. Knowitall a.k.a. G-Man by leaving a comment on his own Flash-55 post. See you there?

If you like writing short, here are some paying markets for Flash Fiction beginning with "B" :

Big Pulp wants pulp fiction in all its forms, including adventure, humour, and romance—they also like comics, photography, and art. Have a look.

Bards and Sages looks for short speculative fiction (horror, fantasy, science fiction, etc) under 1,500 words, including serialisations.

Bound Off seeks original literary short stories for podcasts, between 250 and 2500 words. They pay $20 per story: not a bad rate per word at all.

Breath & Shadow accepts a wide range of creative writing from contributor with disabilities (which they define broadly—the link takes you straight to their guidelines).

Broken Pencil publishes a wide range of creativity; "we like it weird", in as little as 50 words.

Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens is a journal of the absurd and surreal. Er, obviously. Keep it under 2,000 words.

"C" you next week (ha ha).

Now it's time for me to bust down the refrigerator door and eat all the donuts!!

What, no donuts?

I hate dieting.

Skywatching with SETI and the Space Squid

(All the photos in this post were taken this week, within two days of each other. Our crazy weather's getting crazier, or is it just me?)

I know I've been a bit sci-fi heavy lately (damn you, Spock...) but here's one last go for a while; blame it on the Irish Times who are reporting that SETI are looking for advice from the public. That's all of us, right?

For the last forty years or so the SETI Institute has devoted an extraordinary amount of time and resources to listening for signals from outer space. Some years back they also sent a golden disc out there on a satellite, a sort of message in a bottle on an infinite empty ocean, detailing ourselves in words and images, plus Elvis songs.

Now they're asking: If anyone out there makes contact, should we answer? And what should we say?

The Irish Times takes a particularly Irish spin on the question of course, speculating that we'll ask the aliens to stand their own round at the pub, or that we'll become bewildered at the expected command to be taken to a leader (that's a bit of an er, issue in Irish politics at the moment...)

Personally, I don't think we need to worry about spaceships landing in chilly, rainy Ireland where engines would rust off any ship, and the crew would take one look around them at the weather, and mutiny.

I mean, extraterrestials can't be stupid, look where they've landed already: the autopsied ones crashed in Roswell New Mexico (warm and sunny), Lilo's friend Stitch went to Hawaii (warm and sunny), the aliens in Life of Brian buzzed Judea (very warm and sunny) and Indiana Jones' crystal skull people were holed up in Mexico (warm and sunny). I'm seeing a trend. A very wise trend, too, y'ask me.

So if you have something you want to tell Spock the aliens, enter it here, on their Earth Speaks page. Then check the main site, here, because there's also an e-newsletter you can sign up to, or ooh look, you can adopt a scientist.

On the other hand, if the possibilities of a sudden alien communication have your imagination-gears spinning beyond the practical here-and-now, here are some paying markets for the resulting work of human-powered genius.

The Three-Lobed Burning Eye leans toward dark fantasy and horror, looking for "stories that monsters want to read...stories that expand the genre by valuing originality in character, narrative and plot...remarkable tales that the reader cannot forget."

Space Squid publishes a hybrid of science fiction and humour (an excellent combination I'd say). What do they want in a submission? In their own words: "There needs to be totally rocking shit blasting out of that story of yours...we want to laugh so hard that snot comes out of our noses while crying and beating our breasts... We often publish the story you have that nobody else understands....and we promise not to give your name to the FBI after we find out what goes on in that freakish head of yours." Ok, kids, there you go.

Nowa Fantastyka has published some very big names including Orson Scott Card, Tolkien, and Robert Silverberg, and accepts submissions in English, German, French, and Russian. (What, no Vulcan?? Ponfo miran.) Submission guidelines are at the bottom of the page.

Not One of Us is just what it says on the tin: tales of people/creatures/characters who are out of place, outside, exiled, alien. Vampires, alcoholics, and revenge are apparently over-used; read the guidelines for more details.

AlienSkin Magazine publishes short stories and poetry bimonthly online. Poetry should be structured in the Fibonacci Sequence: this is interesting. Each poem should be six lines long, syllables on each line = 1,1,2,3,5,8.

Now
You
Can try
It yourself,
This one's a stinker
But you can surely do better.

If you write Scifaiku (you heard me), try the Shantytown Anomaly. They'll also take other forms of poetry, articles, and short-short fiction. Submission guidelines are in the right column. Hmm... Scifaiku, eh?

Imagine the stars,
their infinite worlds beyond:
Write it and submit!

Oh no, look! An alien, looking down at us right now!
(do you see it too?)


If you want to see more skies (and check for alien spaceships as you go), visit Skywatch Friday.

Conan: MIA

I've had some lovely e-mails lately, quite a few messages that made me smile and lifted my days recently. One asked about Conan, and why so silent so long?

Ah yes, Conan the Grammarian, who made regular ranty appearances on my former blog, once upon a time. Sorry folks, but after recent events poor Conan has gone into shock, and frankly may not recover.

For instance, there was that recent sighting in Belfast. My mother-in-law lives in Belfast, and as soon as we're there insists we all have T. Now I see why. It seems that it frequently goes missing in this city:


(Sorry the "U" is hidden behind the window bar...but that's a whole 'nother issue!)

Then we came home to find our community newsletter in the mail, which appears to be offering to train me to be Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered (all at once?!)...well, er, ok, maybe I'll have a go....



But I suspect that if the wording were changed just slightly, we'd have a clearer picture of purpose of the scheduled event.

Anyhow, Conan's taking a much-needed break now. If you'd like to read her past adventures, they were mostly on the old (dead) blog, but two remain here: Conan the Grammarian Does Galway and Phone Woman v. Conan the Librarian (that's the alter ego, I suppose...)

Swimming Pools, Blogging Stars...

I was dreading Monday for two weeks, and now Monday is past. Happily, I survived it and its HYDROTHERAPY appointment at Physiotherapy. I'm still rather proud of myself that I didn't skip out at the last minute, pretending to be lost from the hospital parking lot, or calling in sick that morning. Blame that one on Thom, who very kindly asked to hear how it went, and thus made me feel obliged to actually go through with it.

Anyhow, I never met anyone who enjoys physiotherapy, unless they've fallen mightily in love with their physiotherapist, which I've never known to happen. Is it just me, or do they bring back really bad bad memories of former PhysEd teachers?

Besides that, I loathe the stink of chlorine in a swimming pool, I hate (hate HATE) the feel of cold wet concrete under my bare feet (eww eeewwwww), I don't like exercising in any circumstances though I force myself a few times each week, I can't help wondering if everyone else in the pool is infested with ringworm, tapeworm, otherworm, or who knows what, plus I'm terrified of water and especially drowning, and most of all, top of the list, worst thing ever, is wearing the bathing suit.

Why can't I get in the pool in a long-sleeved t-shirt and pyjama bottoms? God. Pool nazis.

Good thing I still had the bathing suit I bought to take my little girl to the public wading pool... er, oh, eighteen years ago now. That old suit still looks new, in a vintage chic sort of way, from never being used again since. Unfortunately, while back then I looked almost a bathing beauty in it, now I look more like the cover model for Winnie the Pooh Takes A Dip. Still got all those hot curves, yeah baby! They're just, well, going places these days. Mostly south.

In the end the hydrotherapy wasn't so bad. The water was bath-warm and only shoulder-deep, the exercises weren't hard, and I didn't drown. I came home worn out and went straight to bed after supper, and today I've been good for nothing but reading blogs and napping between. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

So, thanks Jeff (even if you are a Physiotherapist) and thanks, Thom.

A few favourite links from all this recent reading.

How to Lie About Books or, how to avoid literary self-doofication, from Tor.com. Be sure to stop by their website this week, as they're giving away cool fantasy art wallpapers (so far all warrior-chicks...I'm hoping the situation improves. WHY are there no fantasy novels involving male kahiko hula dancers, dammit?)

More writer than thou – a great article from Storytellers Unplugged, laugh-out-loud if you're not into the pretentious-artiste thang.

Ok, I subscribe to perhaps too many fantasy/sci-fi blogs, but I couldn't resist taking this quiz going around: "Which Fantasy Writer Are You?". One of the first things I noticed about this quiz is the atrocious number of misspellings and typos in it, and then I reached question 13: What is the most irritating aspect of the internet (out of these four)? One of the choices was beautifully all of the morons who can't spell. Tempting... tempting. Anyhow, I ended up feeling very honoured by being allied, in the end, with Robert Jordan. Wow.

And, just in as I write this, Agent Extraordinaire Nathan Bransford has posted an excellent revision checklist for a novel manuscript. Some of these questions I think would be hard to judge ourselves; I'm thinking it's an ideal thing to hand to a beta reader or critique circle along with the manuscript, and see if their answers match my own hunches.

Finally, my big thanks to Hope of the Road Less Travelled, and Mimi at Boomer Baby Bliss and the amazing PJ Lynch, all of whom honoured my wee blog while I was not-drowning and sleeping the past few days away. Thanks, all of you! When I'm finally rich and famous I'll send all of you a pretty white pony with bows on.

What will you name her?

Ranty-linky

I've just been reminded of an upcoming fiction contest: Operation First Novel. Woo, thinks I, perhaps I'll give that a go--the deadline isn't until October after all.

Remember all the moaning I did a few weeks back about the €20 entry fee for the Sean O Faolain competition? Well, OFN puts that in the shade, by limiting its contest entrants to members of the Jerry B. Jenkins Christian Writer's Guild. The good news is, that anyone can become a member.

The bad news is, that anyone can become a member by submitting a $149 annual fee. Excuse me for a moment, while I go choke up my dinner.

Well (I hear some of you thinking), what else does the membership offer? Perhaps, maybe, who knows if it's worth it, in a big-picture sort of way. Looking at the dues I pay for a handful of other memberships, all of which fall into the 20-50 range, I'm thinking the Guild must be offering a monthly glossy magazine, serious rental car discounts, a timeshare on the Mediterranean, and a date with Spock. Young Spock.

Er, no.

What a member gets for his/her $149 is a monthly e-newsletter, discounts on their merchandise, access to the 'members only' part of their website, eligibility to their annual contest, and a $149 discount on attending their annual conference.

Now, an e-newsletter just doesn't count in my book. There are many excellent writer's newsletters available for free to our inboxes, including:

Storytellers Unplugged
Randy Ingermanson
Ralan's Market Report
Funds for Writers
Speculative Literature Foundation Newsletter
Publishers Lunch

Contests don't count either. While few will offer $20,000, many are free or want only pocket change for a chance at a respectable award:

The Bridport Prize asks £7, and will give the winner £5,000; in fact everyone on the shortlist of thirteen gets a cash prize.
Esquire (yes, that Esquire) will award $2,500 for a short story and asks no entry fee at all.
The Richard J. Margolis Award is $5,000 and a month's residency; no entry fee mentioned.
Fox (yes, that Fox, with the Simpsons) will look at your comedy script if you write one, with a top prize of (oh my word) $25,000 and a possible development deal. No entry fee.

So, still hanging on to my $149, I'm only looking at the members-only access, and the discounts.

The discounts seem to be on the Guild's own merchandise only, so frankly I'm turned off. In other words, to get the most bang for your buck (so to speak) you need to spend more money at their counter. Hmmph. I suppose that makes sense if you're the one running this thing...but not otherwise. Now, give me tickets to Walt Disney World, Graceland, and Hawaiian Airlines, and we're talking.

Of course, if you're wanting to attend the Guild's writer's conference in Denver Colorado anyhow, it's an easy choice to pay up and enter the contest. If you're not going to Denver, there's little other incentive beyond the members-only access on the website. Now, I could think of a few things that might make it worth $149/year to me, but I seriously doubt that that sort of thing would be on a Christian website.

Seriously.

On the plus side, Sean's is looking positively pennies now.

If I have $149 left to my name after all the kid-partying last week, I think I'll just hang on to it.

Meanwhile, can anyone give me any story ideas for the Bridport? Quick?

*sigh*

Friday Flash 55: The Beginning

I just discovered G-Man and his Friday Flash 55 which seems like too much fun to pass up. Write a story in 55 words, no more no less, and go tell G-man, a.k.a. Mr. Knowitall. Or if you think you're 'all that' (don't we all?) you could send it to the one of the paying markets I've listed below instead.

Meanwhile, here's my go at a 55-word story, a prequel of sorts to yesterday's post:

The Beginning

A lurch and squeal of brakes, the bus doors open.
"Thank you sir."
"Be careful on them steps Miss."
Every weekday, before a half-mile walk home.

"Ride home Miss?" Yesterday's bus driver, waiting in his car.
"No thank you."

Ten tries later (raining this time): "Ride home Miss?"
A skyward glance, a sigh.
"Thank you."

Could you blame her? My Mom was brave enough to be a divorced mother back in the early 50's, and took the bus to work every day in the city, back when a woman had to wear pointy-toed high heels and stockings and pinned-up hair under a hat that matched her handbag, whenever she wanted to go out. (I never would have survived such an era, myself...)

So there she was with her high heels and hairdo, facing a long walk home in pouring rain. Daddy, thanks for giving her the lift: where would I be if you hadn't?


55 words certainly qualifies as "Flash Fiction", an increasingly popular form in these days of texting and twitter. But it's not as easy to write as you'd think: every word counts, and you still need to tell a story, usually under 1000 words though guidelines vary between publications.

If you want to try it, here's a few paying markets, all beginning with A. They're all science fiction or specfic too...must still be that Star Trek hangover I've got. If I manage a second 55-word installment to the above story next Friday, we'll move into B, and see how far down the alphabet I get. Who knows?

Allegory accepts fiction submissions in May and June, so don't wait around. Next submission period starts in September.

Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine is an Australian journal that publishes science fiction with a lighter tone than most sf mags: "We're just not the best market for doom-laden go-nowhere stories which push the boundaries of the English language into new and unfortunate places." I like these folks.

Analog considers stories that are " strong and realistic, with believable people (who needn't be human) doing believable things–no matter how fantastic the background might be." Pays (hur hur) well for it.

Atomjack accepts a variety of specfic, including humour, feminist, surreal, and my favourite, alternate future.

(My Skywatch Friday post has been bumped back to my photoblog, here, this week featuring a bird who thinks he's Otis Redding.)

Doctor, Doctor

Some people you never forget, whether for good reasons or bad.

Long ago when I was working in a library, a young doctor used to visit often. He was handsome, with the most beautiful dark eyes I'd ever seen, and charming? Prince Charming. Put him on stage with with MacBeth's three witches and he would have reduced them to giggles and lovesick sighs in the space of a rhyming couplet.

He asked me out. Yes, he did. More than once too, and perhaps, just maybe, it's the mistake of my life that I refused. But maybe not.

It wasn't him, not his fault. He was everything I'd ever dreamed of: gorgeous, witty, clever, rich, there wasn't a flaw on him that I could see. In that old cliché, it was me I. I'd already been through that dating-a-customer trip before, and NO WAY was I ever going to endure a regular-occuring awkwardness of checking out twenty books for an ex-boyfriend while enduring a heavy stare and hostile silence, ever again. There was something else too at the time that I can't quite remember... a recent bad break-up perhaps, or other complication that just made me say, "Wow, seriously. But no thanks."

He asked again, bless him. And again. He'd tell the other library staff to tell me to say yes, and they'd pull me aside and tell me I was nuts, saying no. I guess I was, because secretly I adored him. But no was no, whatever my dumbass reasons were at the time.

"What's wrong with me?" he asked one day, half-laughing. "Neither of us is dating anyone else. I'm a doctor, you know, it's not like I'm a –" he waved his hand, searching for something – "I'm not a bus driver, for crying out loud."

We looked at each other across the library counter. I remember smiling, but he was that kind of person: sweet and black-haired handsome, he just made you smile to see him. The moment seemed long, but maybe that's a trick of memory... anyhow I remember us looking at each other across that desk for some time.

"My Daddy was a bus driver," I said.

I remember his face then. I still laugh when I remember his face, and maybe that's mean of me. He turned to my co-worker, a friend of his, and said, "I've blown it, haven't I?"

A librarian had overheard, and stopped at the counter. He offered his advice to the doctor: "Well, you can specialise, work hard, work overtime, publish plenty, and who knows? In a few years maybe you can buy yourself a bus!"

We all burst out laughing in that silent library, and bless him, he laughed too.

I wonder about him sometimes. I wonder who's lucky enough to be his wife. I was watching my husband change the oil in his car last week (it's not as if I'd help, I'm automotively useless) and couldn't help telling him, that he'd make a really great bus driver. I couldn't see his face, but his hands went still for a moment in his confusion.

Hey I'm not going to tell him.

Bedtime

I asked Queen Teen to put her baby sister to bed for me; I wasn't feeling well. But on these occasions QT is notoriously speedy at the job.

"Help her brush her teeth," I said, "and read her a story, and let her pick out her own nightdress." All this, because QT would often go upstairs with the baby and come down again without her in four minutes flat. "I'm saying, don't just toss her into her cot on the way past her bedroom door."

"You don't think I would do that?" she said.

"To be honest," I said, "I suspect you of drawing up plans for a contraption over her bed, so that you could just strip her down and toss her from the doorway, and she'd drop into a waiting pair of pyjamas before hitting the mattress."

Srsly.

"Well, if you could make that thing with two layers," she said, "you could dispense with the stripping down by making the top part of the machine do it for you, with a chute to send the dirty clothes to the hamper; then on the drop from there, the new pyjamas would go on, and when she landed on the bed a sensor in the mattress would switch the radio, lights and nightlight on or off as appropriate."

Dammit. I knew she was working on it.




Night stories, anyone?

Dream Catcher is wide open for fiction and poetry and a few other things. No mention of payment terms however.

Midnight Echo comes from the Australian Horror Writers Association, and is open to submissions of fiction, poetry and art. Whether or not you submit something, check out their website, which has writers' tips and good information all over.

Twisted Dreams Magazine wants stories that make them say, "That is so wrong," and want it anyhow. Their website is a MySpace page, by the way. That is so wrong...

Sounds of the Night considers short science fiction and fantasy, including poetry, a little on the adult side.

Dream People publishes... erm... well, escape the boundaries of reality and go see for yourself...

Drive-By

Yeti (yes, him there on the Dollywood cup) mentioned my driveway in a previous comment section, and so I promised photos. With My World Tuesday coming up, I thought hey, why not. So here it is.

Our driveway is a bit steep:




And a bit pitty-puddly:



But that only gives the dog more chances to check his glamorous reflection for any hairs out of place or recurrence of banana stickers.

At the bottom of the first curve is a stone wall, perhaps designed to catch you if you'd picked up too much speed from the drop-splash-drop-slam-drop-bang-oops-there-goes-the-transmission of the initial descent, and needed a sudden stop before choosing to fork left or right.



In that photo above, I'm only a few steps behind them, but still have to point the camera down to take their photo--that's how steep it is. Considering the sharp turn, the steep drive, and the stone wall, perhaps loose gravel wasn't the best choice in paving material...

Our old car didn't survive this driveway long, so we replaced it with a Land Rover. Our local Jehovah's Witnesses don't have a Land Rover; they have to park their car on the road and walk down—they said so on their second visit.

"Well," Himself said, "there's Plan A failed. Now to try Plan B." He was raising his voice as he spoke, which made our dog bark from where he was shut away in the laundry room. Thinking Plan B might involve the large dog, the Witnesses fled. The driveway isn't much easier to run up than to drive up, but eventually they made it. (This time...)

If you have a four-wheel drive or need to wreck your car for some reason, you're welcome to try our driveway -- you can tell which one's ours by the artistically rusted tin can on the gatepost:



The gate is never closed, don't worry. If we closed it, we'd have to leave the car to open it back up again, and the driveway is too narrow for that sort of thing. It's also too narrow to accommodate the mobile home we bought a few years ago, which was a bit embarassing when the time came to go back to the dealership before delivery and explain things...

After all, our roads are perfectly good, as you can see in this next photo, of our neighbour driving by with a hay bale. It's just our own driveway that's bad, is all. Our roads are mighty, paved you know, wide enough for all four tyres at once, in most places anyhow. We've heard tell of places where the roads are painted in stripes and dashes, but well, y'ask me that's just being fancy.



Anyhow, that's part of my world. If you'd like to visit other people's worlds or show off your own, visit My World Tuesday. If you like reading (or writing) about roads instead, try the publications below. The links take you to the submission guidelines as always.

If your first mystery novel hasn't caught the fancy of the Big Houses, you might try a smaller outfit instead: Shannon Road Press for instance. Your mystery may be on any subject, but please, no tragedies, no cliches, no caricatures, and no plots where children or animals come to harm. (Glad to see there's no ban on death-by-driveway)

THEMA has an upcoming issue on "The Trip Not Taken". Hmm. Maybe the main character got stuck in her driveway....

If you can write the whole story in 55 words, and exactly 55 words, you can join Mr. Know-It-All on his Friday meme. I can't remember whose blog pointed me to this one, but I'm glad it did; I'm thinking it sounds like fun and may give it a go myself on Friday.

If 1,000 words is more your speed and you need 50 bucks (who doesn't these days?), you can have a go at the Whidbey Writer's Workshop Student Choice Writing Contest. It might be just me, but I think their preferences and rules are well, a hair off the plumb, if you know what I'm saying, but still, you know.... fifty bucks.

Ghost Road Press will read novel manuscripts in a variety of genres, plus memoir and pop culture and more if you prefer non-fiction.

I wonder if they'd like a book on rural driveways...