In the Void

Well, I woke this morning with a headache, and faint migraine symptoms (didn't actually have a migraine, just the visual glitteries). I suspect this is due to either a) lack of caffeine or b) tropical depression gusvtav arriving in Oklahoma. Either way, compounded by the mist falling outside, I didn't go jogging.

I went to B&N instead hoping to find a copy of the most recent Locus, but no joy. Probably Thursday or Friday, I was told. They evidenly don't track their magazine shipments at all. I'd like to see it because a) there's reportedly a pic of the WOTF ceremony and b) July Fantasy Magazine was reviewed.

(More on each)
A) I just want to know how the pictures came out. I managed to get in the middle, where my overlarge form should have been mostly hidden by those below me.
B) Don't know if my story even got mentioned but I was curious, especially since mine appeared at the last moment of the last week of July. No mention is better than a bad mention, though.
ETA: If you've seen it and it's bad, don't tell me...

The foundation I like is being discontinued. Figures. (Insert eye roll here) I managed to score a couple more bottles at Target at 75% off, though. Won't have to buy foundation till next fall.

And finally, my less yard-industrious neighbor now has a child of the green monster lurking in their front beds, overgrowing their climbing roses and annuals.

pabba has posted a kindly review of my story "Masks of War" here, in which he give me four out of five chicken nuggets! (OK, that's not strictly true, but the guy is obsessed with sushi, folks.)

I'm pleased he liked the story ;o) That's always a nice thing to hear.

I haven't talked much about this, but the story is actually based on a real department in the 3rd London General Hospital in WW1, the "Masks for Facial Disfigurement Department", also known as the "Tin Noses Shop". Smithsonian ran a wonderful article on this last year, avaliable on-line here.

Particularly fascinating are some of the before and after photos available in the photo gallery.(photo taken from the Smithsonian web-site)


Very few of these masks still exist....most of the men who wore them were buried in them.

Well, I copped out and sent that story I was holding for Black Gate somewhere else. Since it's epic fantasy, and 10K, the number of markets is somewhat limited, but I thought I'd give IGMS a try first. I also have a second story that I consider semi-submitted, so I'm going to call that 5 stories out.

OK, not so impressive, but that's 4 more than I had a couple of months ago.
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Played hacky-sack with the dogs again today. Loki can't seem to get the 'kill' part of his mindset to turn off. He wants to kill the hacky-sack and only reluctantly surrenders it. Freya, on the other hand, immediately drops it after she catches it. She doesn't see any point to bringing it back to me, as it will simply prolong the silly game.

ETA: And I forgot, I got a nice review at SF Signal today. Thanks so much to pabba for giving me the heads up on it...I wouldn't have seen ift for a while otherwise. ;o)

Got up about 3:30 this morning, and my head isn't very happy with me at the moment. I need to get some work done, though, so I'll just have to ignore it. ::sigh::

Got a few cleaning tasks out of the way, and I'm off to revise a story...

ETA: Just ran across a review of Issue #7 on SFRevu....
The reviewer likes the issue as a whole, citing Elizabeth Bear's matociquala as Excellent. He also liked me! The stories by newcomers all got a Very Good from me, with the standout by J. Kathleen Cheney. Yay! I don't suck. Gives me the energy to go revise....SFRevu

That's what david_de_beer calls my story "Touching the Dead" in his reivew posted: here. ::dimpling::

I guess reading all those books on forensics paid off...I just got a copy of Death's Acre...ooh, fun research time. ;o)

I think we've decided (as per the previous discussion)that 'Honorable Mention' is the same thing as 'Quarterfinalist', which does not mean top thirty-two. Good enough for me.

Off to the gym now. On day two of No Diet Coke. Headache. Bleh...

ETA: TNOD off to Brutarian. I've never subbed there before, but I thought it might fit.