Writing Blahs

There must be something in the air. Everyone's bummed about one thing or another and I don't want to write. I have been doing a lot of organizing and transcribing notes onto disk, but very little real writing.

Rain continues to be a long-forgotten phenonema of the past. I water and shake my head. I get wetter with sweat than the brown grass does with water.

This has been one helluva summer.

And down here in Texas it ain't over yet.

To think there are people somewhere north of me buying wool sweaters.

Computer Virus Pt 2

Is there something in the water?

I had another stomach "thing" for a several days last week and am unsure if I'm over it yet. My husband handed me a couple of cold pills and I begrudgingly took them only to have them work.

Cold pills for a stomach "thing"? Okie-dokie.

At any rate, the whole "thing" has left me in this weird non-creative mood. I am storyboarding but I haven't really written in days and days. My writer group probably thinks I'm a total Frosted Flake. I would have preferred them find that out a little later.

Website

It's alive!

My website that is.

Persephone Jones is on the web.

Check it out.

P.S. It's still under construction.

Computer virus

All this week I've had some yucky virus.

First my mom had it, then my husband, then me, then my grandfather. Nothing like the family sharing a good ol' puke n poop cootie. I've been dehydrated for days, slurping down Powerade and sleeping like Rip Van Winkle.

Worse than that is the undeniable fact that its ruined my momentum. I haven't written anything in days. I'm doodling notes and brainstorming, but as for sitting down, typing words together to form sentences, paragraphs and finally pages is--well, just not happening.

The only good thing to report is that the website is looking better and better all the time. I can't wait to start using it, telling people I'm out there on the web and adding a link to it in my e-mails.

Web Presence

I always thought it was cool when actors or actresses had obvious presence. But writers have to have it on the page.

And with the advent of the internet, they can choose to have it on the web, too. So I had J help me develop a website. So far it rocks. He's doing a great job on it. Anything he does, he rocks.

I can't wait to see it up and running in its entirety.

Groovin'

The writing gods and goddesses have been good to me lately. The only reason why I can figure is that pound of flesh I left at the dermatologist's office when he whittled away at my finger with a razor blade. I guess that qualified as a human sacrifice.

I hardly miss the finger, by the way...

...kidding.

I've kept busy on three short works that have a real shot at being in print. I re-named them and am currently at work on expanding them. The feedback has been positive and couldn't have made me feel better. Joining a critique group was also a good idea. All their criticisms were legit and insightful.

Even better, the trilogy has inspired a spin-off that could be as equally promising.

I'm still vacillating on whether to enter the Siren contest. I don't want to split the trilogy and feel that the editor at Liquid Silver was right about expanding the stories.

I'll probably pass Siren up as well as Liquid's Zodiac contest and just submit them at a later date when they're all they can be rather than squeeze them into strict guidelines and parameters.

Phaze has a September contest I'm considering but the word count limit is 12K. That's awful short but I may shoot for it anyway. Worst I can do is miss.

Bite Me

Feedback is nice. Nice feedback is really nice. And today I got an unexpected bit of nice feedback. Liquid Silver e-mailed me to inform me that while I didn't win the short story contest, that I was in fact a finalist and that she really liked my story "Scorpio Sweetheart" and wants to read more of my work. Sweet!

While on a bit of a high, I sat down immediately and re-read and edited the aforementioned story. Hours later, it was another thousand or so words thicker (but still within the word limit) and worlds better. And it was good before.

Now I'm in the final edit phase of the next short story "Horns a Plenty" for the same publisher. This story is stronger than the first, so I expect to do even better the second time around. But if not, I've got other contests I can enter this month and next month and the month after that.

Somebody's bound to bite.