The voices in my head don't think they're imaginary

I'm thrilled to announce that I have accepted an offer of representation from Ginger Clark of Curtis Brown Ltd.

I have been stalking Ginger since her days at Writers House. Her client list includes tapratt (buy his books), Eliot Fintushel, Patricia Wrede, Richard Kadrey ... a whole plethora of amazing writers, as a matter of fact.

I'm honored to be in such company. Most of all, I'm excited to be working with someone who I respect, and who I know believes in my work.

And now, I do my happy dance.

*happy dance!*

(Whenever I type the full title of the magazine I want to change it to "Transmissions from Beyonce." Probably because it sounds infinitely more scary that way.)

Anyway, it has been brought to my attention by the wonderful stevenagy that not only has Black Static One: Transmissions from Beyond gone out into the wider world, it has already been reviewed by Tangent Online. The reviewer seemed to like my story, "Votary" ... or, at least he said it made him feel uncomfortable. "It made me uncomfortable" = "I loved it!" when applying the horror reader translation algorithm, right?

In other news, there is no news. I've written barely anything in weeks. But I did have an awesome call with an agent today, and I'm hoping that motivates me to find time to make some progress on the 2 novel proposals I've got simmering on my hard drive. It'll be interesting to find out (as I said to this agent who will remain nameless) if I really have "novelist" in my makeup, or if I'm really just best at short stories. I mean, I know people who completely suck at short stories while they are fine at novel length ... what's to say that I'm not just the opposite?

Ah well, we shall see. Until then, friends ... get out there and get your hands on a copy of Black Static One: Transmissions from Beyonce! It's guaranteed to make you shake your booty ... IN HORROR!

I haven't done a writing update in a little while, and now that I think about it there's actually quite a bit to report. So here goes.

• Rejection from Granta on 2 stories I sent in May. Heh. Hope springs eternal, eh what? I send stories to the New Yorker, too. And I believe in the Tooth Fairy. On the plus side, though, Tin House has not yet rejected the "Fantastic Women" story I sent them. Did I mention I believe in the Tooth Fairy?

• Progress on two new stories. Story A (as yet untitled) is almost complete, and is going to Clarkesworld as soon as I'm finished with it. It has a style and a tone that I think nihilistic_kid might dig, except for the fact that it has a lot of scene breaks ... GONG! I've been using Scrivener to write it, a program catsparx turned me on to. It really is a powerful tool for organizing concepts, even in the short story format.

• Payment from Realms of Fantasy for my upcoming short story "The People's Republic of the Edelweiss Putt-Putt Golf Course." I believe that story will be appearing in the December issue, which means it should be out and about in time for World Fantasy (fingers crossed). It is a weird little tale, my attempt at being Thurberesque. It has just a bit of the Walter Mitty about it.

• Upcoming publication in the new Black Static magazine! Formerly The Third Alternative, Black Static has been simmering for quite some time now. But judging from the spreads Andy Cox has posted, it was time well spent. Issue #1 should be mailing out sometime in the first week of September, so if you haven't yet done your American Duty to Support Speculative Fiction by subscribing to a fine outlet for short fiction, go subscribe now. I guarantee my story "Votary" will make you LITERALLY VOMIT IN TERROR!

• Forward motion on Diet Soap. douglain and I met about a week ago and walked away with two long to-do lists ... and I've even made a tiny bit of progress on mine. We should have a first draft layout of Issue #1 by the first week of September. We have acquired some AMAZING kick-ass fiction (thanks to Doug, who is bearing the brunt of the editorial load admirably) and I can't wait to get it out there for people to read. I'll post about updates as they happen.

• Discussions about an exciting new addition to the Portland writing community. I met with my friend Jeff this week to discuss a really cool project he's putting together. He basically wants to set up a writers house in Portland, modeled on other successful writing houses in cities like Chicago, New York, and Boston. He's looking for input, opinions, friends and community support, and is blogging his progress at http://writersroompdx.blogspot.com/. For the benefit of Portland LJers, I've set up a syndicated feed (pdxwritershouse so you can play along at home!

And that's about it, except for all the stuff simmering on back burners: a couple of novel outlines, an anthology story I'm scheduled write next month, another anthology story I'd *like* to write, a couple of stories on hold here and there, a couple of agents I'm waiting to hear from ... you know, the usual.

Until next time ...

Here's a writer's resource of extreme usefulness:

Online Neighborhood Mailbox Locator!

Don't say I never did nothin' for ya.

Today brought me my swiftest sale *ever.*

Last night, at about 10:30 p.m., I sent off a novelette called "The Warlock and the Man of the Word" to Pete Crowther and Nick Gevers. Today at 12:20 p.m., Nick let me know that he'd like to take it for a future issue of Postscripts.

Swift responses rock. But swift acceptances rock like Spock in a jock eating cheese from a crock.

... I have two stories on hold at wonderful publications, and I've made significant progress on the 5+ stories I'm actively working on at the moment and this is daughter's last week as a 3rd grader (wait ... is that good news?) and my little sister is defending her Master's thesis in Corvallis this week.

And my tomatoes are growing like gangbusters, my basils (I've planted three different kinds: purple basil, holy basil, and sweet basil) are getting big enough to pinch, and my sage is perking along sagaciously. Oh, and the eglantine is blooming outside my window and my peony had seven big blooms on it this year!

So, life rolls along, flowers bloom and wilt, and foot-stomping hissy fits are soon forgotten.

So maybe you're lucky enough to already know Heidi Lampietti, owner of RedJack Press and publisher of the Medicine Show Anthologies. Or maybe you just met her this weekend at Norwescon, where she organized a swell Broad Universe Rapid Fire Reading.

Well, thanks to the constant drip-drip-drip of peer pressure, she now has an LJ. heidi_lampietti. So go friend her and bring her a bundt cake and welcome her to the neighborhood!

Partyin' Hearty. A great time was had by all at the Barley Mill Pub last night. Portlanders from all four corners of our fair city gathered to celebrate davidlevine's Hugo win. Linkables in attendance included coreolis, deedop, kateyule (of course), and most likely dozens more who's LJ handles I'm not savvy to. Beer was swilled, conversation was shouted, and boy did we sweat in that hot little upstairs room. But it was much fun, and I got to catch up with some old friends I hadn't seen in a while.

Some You Win, Some You Lose. I finally gave up and queried GVG on the story that's been sitting at F&SF for over 100 days now ... turns out (as you might guess) that he'd actually passed on it back in May. It was a genteel and useful rejection, as always--thank you Gordon. But fortune did not look entirely unsmiling upon me this week; I also got word from Shawna McCarthy that she'd like to take another of my stories for Realms of Fantasy. That makes two I've sold there this year, and brings my number of stories sold this year up to five. I have to sell two more stories this year to meet my numbers from last year. Unfortunately, I only have 2 more unsold stories in inventory. Which means that I have to ... uh ... write.

But Lo! Writing There Has Been! The pirate novella is up to almost 8,000 words (erp) and I'm not even halfway finished with it. I am having a great deal of fun with it, and have enlisted the wise and able aid of sartorias to help me avoid looking like a fool in my sea-battle scenes. I also have quite a few almost-finished stories just lazing around in my folder, looking seedy and flaccid. They must be whipped into shape. They shall be whipped into shape. I vow it.

Ego Boo: Or, "One of These Things is Not Like The Others". So I was paging through the Oct/Nov. issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction (which has some fantastic stories in it, by the way -- I loved "Revelation" by Albert Cowdrey) and I happened to notice my name among a list of "upcoming authors" on the subscription card in the middle of the book. This alone wasn't what startled me. What startled me was the other names. Ted Chiang, Carol Emshwiller, Charles Coleman Finlay, M. Rickert, Bruce Sterling, and Gene Wolfe. Giants of Fantasy and Science Fiction. And ... me. I can only assume my name just happened to have the right number of letters or something.

EOMFN