June 2017 Goals roundup

So June was pretty great!

My short story "Daddy's Girl" was published in Syntax & Salt and a lot of people have shared it across Twitter and said very nice things about it, which I really appreciate and which thrills me to no end. I try to share short stories when I've really liked them, and follow the authors on Twitter, and in this instance that story is mine and that author is me and it's a lovely feeling. Additionally, the Syntax & Salt folks were very nice and easy to work with, and I'd like the stories they'd run previously, which is why I submitted mine.

Oh, so have you tried out Inspirobot? You should. It's an AI built to generate inspirational phrases, and slaps them onto images. It's....interesting. Sometimes perfect, sometimes hilarious. Sometimes both! I may inflict some of them on my writing group as writing prompts. We'll see.

Interestingly, so far, every story I have had accepted was either 1. accepted its first time submitted or 2. the first time I'd submitted a piece to that particular market. Obviously, this trend has to break at some point, as I have more stories and am constantly sending them out. Though I guess I need to take a break on that pretty soon, if I'm going to be doing October Madness again this year. Though the point of October Madness is to get myself submitting stories, without having lapses, and clearly that is no longer a problem for me. So we'll see.

There are any number of short stories I have (still, forever and always) that I have started and that need to be finished. Some which have been rejected enough that they've received large overhauls and rewrites, some slated to receive such a treatment. I've got one story that was not originally speculative but is now and (I think) works pretty well that way. We'll see what the rejection letters (or acceptance letters?) have to say about that.

In June I indeed wrote a new short story, a cyberpunk-ish sort of thing concerning biotech and limb/body part replacement and personal security. It was also a romance, very technically, and written to a prompt from my friend Tori (the author of Eelgrass), who was trying to prevent me from jumping the gun and submitting May's short story too early. Because I don't really write romance, it was an interesting challenge, and she gave me these stipulations: "1 kiss, one loving description of a butt, flowers exchanged, and a meet cure. I also want one witty banter, a shooting range, and an assassination attempt."  It is to my credit that I did not in fact just cheat and write a Shadowrun story using one of my characters. I did also write a couple of Shadowrun stories, a pair of which were very fun indeed because they were the same scene/situation from two perspectives.

I have decided for July's Camp NaNoWriMo that I'll be rewriting/revising The Last Song. I've made a new and improved playlist, I have the most current draft printed out, I've been circling the characters in my head and looking at Detroit things again. I've also had the thought that maybe I shouldn't write it from the perspective of my rock star Orpheus, but I think writing it from my modern day Eurydice's point of view isn't actually the best plan. It's possible, certainly, and though she needs to be represented far more strongly than my current text does, I don't think that's the correct frame. So we'll see what happens.

NaNoWriMo 2016: cyberpunk sequel madness (and assorted esoteria)

I know you're all very surprised, I'm doing NaNoWriMo this month. And can I say how goddamn delighted I am by the SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE theme that the flair has? I already bought a participant t-shirt, and I'm debating on when to order the winner shirt (I haven't won yet, but....)


I'm not writing a space novel this year (though I did last year!). No, this year I'm writing the sequel to the novel that I wrote in July for CampNaNoWriMo. I really liked those characters, actually, though I will confess that bits and pieces of their personalities and tics may or may not come from characters I've played, and may end up in some way familiar to people who were in those games with me. Other things, most things, are fresh. But, in July, the novel was a cyberpunk diamond heist carried out by three young independent women. This month, the novel is two of the three, and something to do with militias and hijacking army supplies and what they spent their money on from all those diamonds. Because the characters don't know yet, I don't have to know yet, isn't that great? I think that's great.

Quotable Quotes from Gaming Life

A lot of gaming quotes are really only funny in context. I know it, you know that. Some gamers don't.

Then, there are some gaming quotes that are funny regardless. May I direct your attention to: Out of Context D&D

We frequently have D&D going in my household (well, Pathfinder), but we've also had Shadow Run and most recently Fading Suns going on in our gaming group. I thought I'd wade through and find some gems from there.

30 Days of D&D Day 3: Favorite Playable Class

Fighter. Hands down, my favorite playable class for a very long time has been fighter.

The first character I put on paper, but did not play, was a human fighter who was escaping fighting pit slavery. The character I played to the highest level  I've to date attained was a human fighter. It was a great class for me to learn the D&D systems, learn how combat and the battlefield worked, and be able to have a pretty straight dotted line when it came to decision making. 

(this is kind of a funny point of comparison here, for me, as a gamer. I stuck with fighters in Dungeons and Dragons at the beginning, because of their lack of complication and their perceived ease. In Shadowrun, which we play once a week, I've been playing a Decker, which many other people at the table think is the hardest role to play. It's interesting, to see how different systems might appeal to you differently, and also to realize and recognize how you might have grown and changed as a gamer)

There is no party like a Goldberg party

Me: Have you heard of Resting Bitch Face? I pretty much definitely have that.
Newest Coworker: I haven't heard of that. I feel like I have resting Morose face, but I'm not a morose person.
Me: Well, on Tuesday, a friend accused me of having Resting Judgement Face.
~~~~~~~~~~~Later~~~~~~~~~~~~
Newest Coworker: Oh, I see it now. I think what you have is Judging Bitch Face


(oh, apparently it's actually "Bitchy Resting Face", not Resting Bitch Face. Fucking whatever.)


"Look honey, we came to the Barrens to choke a bitch." ~ From the Shadowrun game


Me: I had my first Irish Car Bomb on St. Patrick's Day!
Coworker: I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you. I thought you said car bomb?
Me: I....I did. It's a drink.


Coworker: Oh watch, now you get to see Jen go be mean, you haven't seen this yet.

Selective Listening

I talk a lot about how I listen to music while writing. I won't say I make a playlist for every new project I have, especially since I have a much-evolved playlist I created for my first NaNoWriMo and manipulated a lot since. I don't always use that one, but it's there to fall back on while I'm writing. It tickles the right things.