Vai watches me write. He looks as fried as I feel.
Twitter Tools is malfunctioning ever since the switch from daylight savings to standard time. Keeps posting early. Oh well, here they are for the day:
My story online @crossedgenres– “Cold” by Melissa S. Green http://bit.ly/320Vif — read it! Read the rest of the issue too, good stuff! #
@JanFlora49 Someone unfollowed me last wk b/c of my open letter to Palin to STFU. I was deeply saddened. Actually, no I wasn’t. STFU Palin! in reply to JanFlora49#
@audiocloud Great lists! I’ve been starting to compile ’em too, it’s been hard to keep up w/ Twitter otherwise. in reply to audiocloud#
Done writing for the night. Lotsa background on how Consensus govt. formed & became independent. Up to 4352 #nanowrimo words. #
Rebekah & me at our midnight write-in kickoff at Denny's for NaNoWriMo 2009.
My username on NaNoWriMo: yksin.
The new name for November: NaNovember. For the entire month is devoted, amongst a certain set of crazed writers, to writing something that we will pass off as a “novel” of some 50,000 words, all in 30 days. That averages to about 1,667 words a day, about 6 double-spaced pages.
A bunch of us Anchorage NaNo’ers assembled at the Denny’s at Denali & Northern Lights beginning about 10:30 PM & got in a bit of socializing or, in my case, coffee fortification before the stroke of midnight set our fingers tapping on laptops, typewriter, or whatever the dedicated wordprocessing gizmo is that Rebekah uses. A little later we had a writing break, which turned into a photoshoot of those of us who were in Halloween costume. Then people began to get tuckered out & departed. Rebekah & I were last to leave, around 2:00 AM — but I was determined to at least get my daily quota in before I hit the sack &, having the bad habit of editing as I write (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but tends to be a liability when you want high word production, as is the case with NaNo), that took me till around 5:00 AM. Well, & I was a bit over quota too, at 2,138 words, which is nice. And then I slept in. (Wrote later in the evening, and ended the first day at 2,653 words. Only 47,347 more to go!)
I’m calling this year’s NaNovel Long Dark, which isn’t likely to be a novel — more like a set of stories or vignettes from earlier in the timeline of the same story universe that “Cold” is set in. Right now I’m writing about the first trip to Earth of a data trader, who somehow appeared in my imagination a couple of weeks ago. She’s a member of, and agent for, the Consensus, which is the society of people who live in the asteroid belts & on some of the moons of the gas giants of our solar system — the same people who will send out the ships that ultimately colonize the binary system where the planet Boleyn & Bai (of “Cold”) will be terraformed. It’s the rich resources of the “Persian Gulf of outer space” — especially helium-3, which will be a major energy source using fusion — that will ultimately finance voyages to other star systems. My data trader, whose name at the moment is Louava, is riding down a space elevator from orbit & staring in fascination at everything she sees. And, it turns out, remembering in quite some detail some of the training she & other data traders & diplomats got from a past spy & data thief whose name somehow became Mordecai. I never heard of this guy before last night.
NaNo writing is so weird.
Here’s my tweets for the day:
2138 words for NaNoWriMo thus far — 471 over the daily quota of 1667 average. Going to bed now, will write more upon rising. #
The real reason for switching from daylight savings to standard time on Nov 1: to give NaNoers an extra hour to write today. #
Blogged at Henkimaa: Crossed Genres announces its first short story anthology — and “Cold” will be in it! http://bit.ly/mmcRe#lgbt#
Several of our number came in Hallowe’en costume, & we got pics during a writing break. Here’s the slideshow. Dr. Horrible, eat your heart out!
This is some news I’ve been hanging on to for a few days, but now Crossed Genres has announced it, & I’ve been given the go-ahead to blare it out from the rooftops too. (It’s mighty cold on those rooftops, I must say — but isn’t cold what “Cold” is all about?)
When I decided to submit a piece for Crossed Genres’ LGBTQ issue, I just figured it was a good way to begin changing gears from my summer & early fall of being dominated by politics. (Chiefly, the battle to gain equal protection under the law for LGBTQ citizens of & visitors to Anchorage — a battle that, once again, we initially won, only to see the measure vetoed by a conservative mayor. But I’ll say no more about that right now, out of respect for my blood pressure.)
It had been a long time since I’d submitted anything for publication — my main writing activity for the last few years has been on novels-in-progress that I was continually distracted from by events in life, & then by aforementioned politics. So you can imagine my delight when I checked my inbox on October 3, just three days after submitting “Cold,” to find a message from Bart Leib accepting it for publication. Maybe you can also imagine my further delight when a few days later I got an email from Kay Holt, telling me that Crossed Genres would be publishing a anthology featuring one story from each of the 12 issues published in its first year — & asking to use “Cold” to represent the LGBTQ issue.
I said yes, of course. I wrote back to Kay, “Whoa, between you & Bart, you’re making me very happy to be back in the saddle writing again!”
February is the month of my birth: usually my favorite birthday present is being able to go out to catch my bus after work & finding the Sun still above the horizon. But this year? — The first Crossed Genres anthology will be released on February 1, 2010. The anthology will be published in trade paperback format (6″ x 9″), and will also be available in various digital formats.
Better yet, Crossed Genres is offering a preorder special: if you preorder a copy anything this month (November 2009), you’ll not only get 10% off the regular price of the anthology, but you’ll also get a free 1-year online subscription to Crossed Genres. That’s $9 for a $20 value! Go here for more details and to place your preorder.
Here’s what will be in the anthology — one story from each of the first 12 issues:
Big cricket for sale: I found this big metallic insect in a shop window on G Street a couple of shops down from Side Street Espresso, where I do my Saturday writing.
Today was in part a prep day for NaNoWriMo 2009, which begins on the stroke of midnight. But I’m also working on a story, tentatively called “Breathe,” that takes place on the same planet, in the late stages of terraformation, where my story “Cold” is set. It tells the story of how Pina Chomko becomes the first person to breathe the planet’s free air, and also a bit of Finnish folklore. I’m aiming to submit it before the end of November (since that’s the deadline) to Crossed Genres to fit the folklore theme for their January issue. This is on top of doing 50,000 of NaNoWriMo writing.
And then in the evening, after returning from writing at Side Street — I learned that the LGBTQ issue at Crossed Genres had gone live. So you can all go read my story now, if you’d like. Please!
Here’s the day’s tweets.
My story now online — “Cold” by Melissa S. Green | Crossed Genres http://bit.ly/320Vif — read it! Read the rest of the issue too! #
Issue 12 of Crossed Genres went live tonight. And I’m in it! Woohoo!
So is a lot of other really good LGBTQ science fiction & fantasy. My story “Cold” is one of 10 fiction stories, 2 nonfiction articles, and some really good artwork, including the cover art from with the cover art above comes. There’s also an interview with gender outlaw Kate Bornstein.
It’s pretty cool to be in such company. So please read! Here’s the complete table of contents.
Fiction
“Crawl” by Kate Bachus
“Cold” by Melissa S. Green
“Finished” by C.A. Young
“The Tale of the Innocent Little Mermaid Statue” by Megan Rose Gedris (with accompanying art)
“Mismatch” by Shay Darrach
“Heart of Venus” by Michael G. Farquhar
“Stay” by Angela Kroeger
“Woodwork” by Aditya Bidikar
“DEMM Wizard” by Deirdre M. Murphy
“Me And Susannah” by Tuulia Saaritsa
Nonfiction
“Heinlein’s Friday: A Trans Novel?” by Cheryl Morgan
“Why Gay Sci Fi And Fantasy Is Important” by Lee Wind
An interview with author and outlaw Kate Bornstein
Artwork
“Untitled” by Julie Dillon (Cover)
“Don’t tell Galvatron, but Shock Fleet’s lookin’ at him funny” by David Willis
Story art by Megan Rose Gedris (accompanying her story)
