Ninecross is Done

The draft of Ninecross is done.

Numbers:

148 pages in Word.

65 pages of errata.

86900 words.

10~ish months of work.

27 days later than my self-imposed deadline of Christmas.

Eleventy billion legal pads of notes.

Another eleventy billion things I need to fix.

But it’s done.  And for that I’m celebrating.

Stupendously Ultimate First Paragraphs and Me

Well I suppose I can write about this now.  My very first press moratorium!  Take note, you might need that for Super Obscure Jeopardy one day.

I’ve been a disciple of Nathan Bransford’s blog for a while now and I urge anyone thinking about getting serious about authorship and all that icky publishing business to read it.  It’s really indispensable I think.  Anything you could want to know about writing a query, to questions of decorum with agents, to breaking down publication rights, is covered somewhere on his site.  Additionally, he gives some nice rundowns on major happenings in the publishing world and holds all sorts of contests with his readers.  One being the Stupendously Ultimate First Paragraph contest, which is pretty much what it sounds like.

Well, I’m not really one for Internet contests (they scare me) but I said hey, why not, and I stuck the first paragraph from Wolf and the Robots Who Ate the World in there.  To my surprise, it ended up being one of the finalists.  I might have done a little dance in my chair when I read that.

So that was my excitement for the week.

That’s my excitement face.

We Interrupt This Nonsense for Actual News

Remember that time when I actually wrote things and submitted them to magazines and journals instead of going on about Minecraft and the continued lack of snow in D.C.?  Well then, new year, new times.

Back in 2009 (two years ago! I’m still dealing with this new year nonsense) I got my poem “ghostglass” published in Lines + Stars, a scrappy little literary magazine that began “as a means of establishing a new creative forum in Washington, D.C., a city that all-too-often coasts solely on its more mechanistic pursuits.”  Hooray to that, I say!  So I was elated to hear that they included me in their 2009-2010 Best Of collection.  I was holding off until they announced it on their website (yes, this is the news I’ve been eluding to), but it doesn’t look like that will happen any time soon.  And these copies are burning a hole in my e-news pocket.  (Does that comparison work?  Hmm.)

Anyways, I encourage you to pick up a copy or at the very least browse around the archives and read some quality writing.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some more plots to wrestle with.

News: The Yelping Crowd

It’s a day for new blogs all around.  Maybe it’s the Eternal September in all of us.

My disdain for tumblr isn’t quite up there with Twitter, but it’s close.  Perhaps it’s the ADHD-glorified format, the vomitsplatter of self-glorified shutins, the slavering mass of unlistening gristle reblogging in a vile spew of barelywatched media crap, but I think it’s a hallmark of a new social nihilism.  I mean, I kinda wrote a whole book about this.  Anyways, that’s my explanation for why I’ve been revisiting my old account at doombabble and holding the ugliest of mirrors up to that wreck of language.  Most likely I’ll get bored with this whole experiment in a week and move on to something else like that zombie epic I need to figure out.  It’s disposable like the rest.

If you’re actually in the mood for someone with quality taste, may I direct you to angelmeat, the gorgeous fledgling blog of my LJ friend who dragged me back into tumblr-ing (that’s a word)?  Seriously, if you’re going to follow someone, go with her.  I’m a mess; she’s all poise.

And in the vein of LJ friends, (I told you it was the season for new blogs!), my friend hellaine has started a blog specifically for her pastlife stories as a professional groupie and you should totally read it.  And this comes from the guy who doesn’t care much for memoirs and true-life stories.  Check it out.

Is that it?  Anybody else make a blog out there while I wasn’t looking?

“afraid not” in March decomP

My poem “afraid not” has been published in the March issue of decomP magazinE.  decomP (previously known as Decomposition Magazine), started in April 2004 and has been going monthly ever since.  Monthly!  That means, in the time it takes some magazines to reject my work they’ve already put out three separate issues. Nice work guys!  So give them a read if you’ve got the time (and start with mine!)

Stay awesome, everyone.

-Daniel