When I think about my goals and priorities for the coming weeks and months, I keep getting distracted by all the things I “should” have been doing for the past six months. I feel like I’m buried under an impossible mountain of to-do lists. One thing at a time, I know–but it just seems like I can never do all of this.

Also, I have trouble with unrealistic expectations. 😦

One problem I’m having is that my physical environment is stressing me out. I’m a neat freak and this apartment has gotten out of control. The office is literally piled with junk. I cannot walk in there safely, nor reach shelves. I’m good at cleaning and organizing, but I dislike huge chores like this (I’m a “clean as you go” kind of person.) I don’t currently have the flexibility and stamina necessary to handle this.

At least the office door can stay closed.

What do you guys think? Try to do little cleaning tasks in the other rooms, and keep the office closed until I’m ready for it? Attack the office with Shannon’s help and confront some clutter that’s been there for years? I can’t decide which would help more–all the little cleaning/organizing tasks that are bugging me in the rooms I use most, or the awful nightmare of the office.

(As a side note, the reason I recognized what was happening here is that Shannon scrubbed, vacuumed, mopped, and dusted before I got home from the retreat… and it was fabulous. I felt much better about being in this environment. Have I mentioned that I love this man?)

Last December, SFWA put out a call to all active members to nominate some works for the Nebula. There was a flurry of activity.

Since stories lose eligibility after a certain period of time, I thought it made sense to read some stories now at mid-year and see what I want to nominate. I’d like to encourage other active members to do the same.

So! Anyone who has a short story or novelette that you want me to read and consider for nomination, I’ll do it. Just post here. I will read 1-2 works per person. If it’s not available online, you can email it to me. Or tell me it’s available from the Nebula site, where I can go find it.

If anyone wants to read my work, I suggest either Break the Vessel or Kill Me, both from Helix.

ETA: Yesterday I did hear about the drama surrounding Helix’s editor, as detailed here and here. I knew none of this when I submitted my story and signed the contract. I am greatly distressed by the incident. But I take contracts very seriously, and have one signed with Helix. Therefore, I am continuing to promote my stories as I normally would, and I hope my readers understand that.

If anyone prefers not to visit Helix, drop me a line and I’ll send you a copy myself.

I’m just finishing 10 days in lovely Chattanooga at a writers’ retreat. The Codex Writers met for a short workshop, with Ellen Datlow as our guest. We critiqued stories, and then we had a whole week dedicated to writing, brainstorming, walking in the woods, and getting poison ivy.

Just kidding about the poison ivy. But it was a close call.

We stayed at the house of Mary Robinette Kowal’s family, and they were the best hosts one can hope for. They have a guest house made of logs, and that’s where I stayed. Her dad plays the musical saw and we heard him perform the Star Trek theme. That was pretty amazing.

During the 7 days of retreat (after the workshop), I wrote 3 novel chapters (long ones), wrote 2 flash fiction pieces, revised 2 novel chapters, and brainstormed one story I hope to write when I get back.

This has been a wonderful experience and I’m so glad I came here. I’m heading home in a few hours, and while I’ll be glad to see Shannon again, I’ll miss the experience of the writing retreat.

It is impossible to escape a science fiction event without at least one or two new books stuck to you, like flies on flypaper.

This makes me so upset. Several Clarion West students were victims of a burglary in the house. Everyone is okay, but these students need new laptops. If you would like to donate towards helping these students, there’s information at the link.

I can’t imagine how awful it would have been to lose my laptop at the workshop. I will be helping out.

In this story, I just typoed a phrase as “Spam of Satan.”

I’m tempted to leave it as is.

Apparently the most common birthday in the U.S. is October 5th. That lines up nicely with New Year’s Eve conceptions (since gestation is actually closer to 40 weeks than to 9 months, if I recall right, and months have different numbers of days anyway.)

The least common birthday is May 22. I guess it’s too hot in August.

These may change in the future, due to modern conveniences like air conditioning and so forth.

Anyway, I did find a list of the most/least common birthday months, but it didn’t adjust for number of days in the month. So it was pretty useless. Of COURSE February is the least common birthday month. *mutter*

But they did show August as #1 and July as #2, which doesn’t sound right to me at all. Anyway, as I said, not terribly useful if you don’t adjust for the length of the month.

Why does nobody on my friends list have a July birthday except me?

(Well, there’s one other person I know with a July birthday, but she didn’t put it on LJ. So it doesn’t show on my list.)

“Break the Vessel” is now published at Helix. This is the fecal matter story I keep threatening to read in public places, like supermarkets and child-care centers. There’s also some fine work in this issue from Jennifer Pelland, Ada Milenkovic Brown, C.A. Gardner, and Tina Connolly. If you enjoy the issue, please consider making a small donation to keep Helix alive. They publish the stories that other magazines are afraid of. That’s worth supporting.

Also, I didn’t post much about WisCon, but one of the coolest moments in my career so far happened during the Taboo reading. I read the first few scenes of this story. When I got to a certain sentence, I said, “And we’ll stop here,” –there was an audible gasp from the audience.

I can’t tell you how absolutely cool that was.

And as a bonus, we raffled off prizes at the end. My offering was a copy of Paper Cities and the reading copy of “Break the Vessel.” The winners could pick their prize. The first person whose name we drew came up and told me to re-raffle Paper Cities because he already had it, but he wanted the reading copy for my story. That was an awesome feeling. 🙂

Anyway, I hope you like “Break The Vessel.” I hereby promise that if I win an award for this story, I will include the word “turd” in my acceptance speech.

I haven’t posted much because there isn’t much news lately, but here’s a short update.

–I now have diagnosis for Medical Condition #2, to match Medical Condition #1 discovered in March. I’m going for the complete boxed set! This condition is also lifelong and won’t kill me, but will require some management. (Are we sensing a theme here?) This one is less of a surprise, but just as problematic. More major lifestyle changes ahead for me. My feelings on the matter: deeply tired of this, but trying to be gentle with myself. It takes time to change my life.

–I’m going to a writers’ retreat with the Codex folks for ten days. It’s in Tennessee. I’m excited about some time to focus on my writing, and glad to be well enough to go.

–I’m really mad about losing all this time this spring (even though I understand it was necessary) and I’m ready to attack some stories and get some writing done, dammit!