Head above Water

[alanajoli]

I wrote the subject of this post, then thought, "Wait, didn't I write something with that title before?" Took me a minute to remember, but yes -- an adventure for Living Forgotten Realms (Cormyr 1-3, to be exact). It's kind of fun to have written enough stuff that's out there in the world (albeit most of it modular adventures) that it takes me a second to place the title.

But that's neither here nor there. The title is intended to reflect what I've been doing lately -- as in, "Keeping my." Things never seem to slow down at Casa Abbott any more, and a couple of unfortunate events -- currently a cold, previously an epic saga I'll explain below -- have made things even more of a kaffuffle than usual. But, hopefully, I'll get back on top of the pile and start feeling just regularly-whelmed instead of over-.

• The saga: Editorial assistant Tollers decided on Sunday the 7th that he was going to go out for an afternoon walk and just forgot to come home. For three days. Monday morning it snowed here on the Shoreline, and we were worried something had happened to him. So, we put out posters and spread the word among local friends. Bug and I wandered out into the woods behind our house whistling for him (the Editorial Assistants are trained to respond to a whistle) and polled the neighbors to see if anyone had seen him. Then, three days later, he showed up at the door, meowing to be let in as though nothing had happened. Whew! We kept him in for a couple of days to remind him where home was, but since then, he's been back out on his regular afternoon walks and has checked in more frequently than usual, as if to say, "I know I worried you. I'm okay. Feed me?"



• I wrote a short story! "Shotgun Wedding" is out on submission for an anthology that will be edited by Matt McElroy, my editor at Flames Rising. Two of my crit buddies (Twostripe and niliphim) said that the biggest problem they had with it was that it ought to be a novel. Considering that it's urban fantasy, and Twostripe doesn't even really like UF, that made me very excited. So, I'm hoping to start a bigger project featuring those characters -- I wrote the short story with the idea that it might be a prequel to an urban fantasy series. While doing research for the story, I came across the Chinese saying "All that is needed is an East Wind" -- I think All We Need Is an East Wind would be a nifty title, so I'm going to use it (or just East Wind) as a place holder for now for the soon-to-be WIP.
• I had a wonderful and too-short visit with my mother, who flew out from Michigan. She reminded me again that the only reason she let me go off to college at sixteen was that I promised I'd develop a way to tesser (I'd planned on going into physics), and I still hadn't fulfilled my part of that bargain.
• The current set of autobiographies is coming to a close, which means I need to get a lot of editing done this week! I've got a fun bunch of writers as usual: I already have edits back from playwright Jean-Claude van Itallie (who teaches about writing and theater, meditation, and healing in the Berkshires, not too far from where I went to college) and friend of the blog Jeff Duntemann (who you should be reading over at jeff_duntemann if you're not already). If all goes well with the editorial process, I'll have five essays in this batch (instead of the usual four), which should be a plus for my in house editor.
• I'm also studying, through a correspondence course, fitness for pregnant and postpartum women, in hopes of a) passing a practicum in early December, and b) teaching for Dancing Thru Pregnancy, the group that I've been taking classes with to get back into shape after having Bug. The material is really fascinating, though I struggle with some of the information, since I never took anatomy in school -- it's a lot of new content to work through. I just need to get on top of the material before my test deadline!
• Lastly: more copyediting. Bread and butter keeps a person from starving, no?

And, of course, I want to keep up with blogging again. I've got a great guest blog coming up from Dylan Birtolo (eyezofwolf), and hopefully there will be some fun news on the Cowboys and Aliens front to share, since word on the street is that there's a movie trailer coming out soon...