Good Monday, everyone! In a bold statement against tradition (or, perhaps just a benefit of not working a traditional M-F job), Mondays are easily my favorite day of the week. Monday’s the day when I start over, swipe clean the messy slate of the prior week, and look forward with fresh eyes and a new strategy. This week is going to be especially nice because I’m going in with four days off rather than my usual three. It’s not as nice for my paycheck (although I’ll make it up with the time-and-a-half working Labor Day next week), but I’m very excited for what it means for my reading and writing and doing things around the house.
On the writing front, I finished a story that I didn’t intend to write for On the Premise, but ended up sending it their way anyway. I’ve got two newer stories waiting in the wings to by typed up still, too, and I’ll probably finish up either the one about the literally absent-minded woman or the woman falling out of love with her childhood idea of love. I started a superhero story that will potentially be for Meerkat Press‘s “Behind the Mask” anthology. I’ll also be working on typing up some sections of Rosewood Manor to submit for an emerging writer award.
As of this morning, I’m sitting at 0 acceptances and 8 rejections since August 15th. Only two rejections this week, a big leap from the six I got last week.
Reading wise, I finished Lawrence Watt-Evans’s With a Single Spell. It was cool to read a bit of a “stand alone” fantasy (although there are other books in this world), but there was just too much about it I didn’t like. The characters felt very flat, the plot kind of rambling, and everything felt like it was right there on the surface, never digging in deeper. The writing was also really repetitive, which can be a pet peeve of mine. I started up The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides (one of my absolute favorites), and I’m just in love with it already, but, then again, it’s all about a woman going to college and studying English, so it’s taking me back to my university days, like, get out of my head, geez. Brilliant, engaging, I’m a real big fan so far. I’m not really close to finishing many books at the moment, but I suspect I’ll try to devour Karen Russell’s Vampires in the Lemon Grove or this cool old book about Tarzan and Edgar Rice Burroughs by Robert W. Fenton that I’ve been reading.
My weight remains stagnant still, which is fine, because I haven’t been great about the whole What I Consume thing and I didn’t even get a hike in last week. I did go out to karaoke with some friends from work on Saturday and totally killed my rendition of “Don’t Stop Me Now”, if I say so myself. My boyfriend, by the way, did “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” from Mulan, and it was epic.
So how’s your week shaking out? I’m really, really looking forward to the extra time off (assuming, of course, I don’t get called in, which is rare but has happened a few times this month).
Happy reading!
L.S. Engler 
I had 4 days free last week too (I also don’t work Mondays)! Isn’t it wonderful? hehe
Oh, it’s brilliant. And it’s kind of funny, too. I worked yesterday, and, I swear, about half of my customers were all, “I haven’t seen you in a while!” And I just laughed and said, “Because I actually got some time off, whaaaat?”
Sounds like a good week is ahead! I look forward to your Monday morning posts! 🙂
Aww, thanks, Mom. I actually look forward to writing them a lot, too. It makes me feel like I’ve actually got a good grasp on things for a change. lol
Okay at the risk of sounding~~ “oh shit, here comes the mom opinion” ~~when you grasp, grasp loosely so that your ideas & creativity do not become crushed under those fingers that grasp . Love ya!
Sounds like a great week. My kids just went back to school today, so I’m figuring out a new routine.
New routines can sometimes be just the fire under your feet to get things flowing nicely. I’m just pleased the routine I’ve got at the moment has been working well for a while now. I’m really enjoying it.
I saw submissions to World Unknown Review posted in a SFF Faccebook Group I follow and I put in a good word for you ;D. Have you seen any surge in submissions this week? 🙂
It astounds me how good you are at pushing out short stories. I can write novels all day but short stories are just so beyond me. I wish I had more to submit to places. But ugh. It is a foreign art.
I have had a beautifully steady flow of submissions lately, so thanks for the extra good word! I’ve already beaten my number from last year, so I am really, really stoked for Volume III. It’s going to be incredible.
And it’s so funny that you say that, too, because I have always considered myself to be more of a novelist. Short work was always a challenge for me, until I just sat down and kind of forced myself to do it. And now I can have a week where I pump out two or three stories. They may not necessarily be good stories, but they’re there, and that’s pretty important, too.Unfortunately, now my novel writing kind of suffers a little bit, but I’m working on so many things right now that I just have to remind myself that they naturally just take longer.