PACKERS WOO!

Now I can continue ignoring sports.

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.

In Other Other Other News

I built this.

And that’s why I love Minecraft.

Happy New Year, you crazy kids!  Next stop, nonstop excitement!

Last Minute Christmas Excitement!

I thought I’d have some exciting news to announce by now, but it looks like people are playing the keep-Daniel-waiting game.  So.  Here’s some lovely bleakness to go with the weather outside.

Stocking stuffer: The Twelve Terrors of Christmas by John Updike, as illustrated by Edward Gorey.