Monday Morning Reset [06/19].

It’s finally here, the day my mom comes and visits me! I’ve got a few hours before her train rolls into Union Station, which gives me enough time to pump out a Monday Morning post and get a few other of my usual things done before four days of cool museums, awesome food, shopping, and whatever else we decide to do. I’m a little bummed because it crept up on me, and I didn’t have much time to clean or anything, and I know she doesn’t care, but I know she’ll be super impressed with my messy ass apartment and car! Oh, well. She’s known me for 33 years, I’m pretty sure none of that will be a surprise to her. I’m glad I got a chance to do my usual Monday routine, though, because I’m a bit compulsive about that sort of thing and it throws me way off when I don’t get the chance to do it.

So here’s what I’ve done and what I probably won’t be getting done this week because I’ll be too busy showing Mom around Chicagoland:

Reading: I didn’t get to plow through Missing People like I’d hoped, but I did plow through a lot of it. I’ll definitely be surprised (and lazy!) if I don’t finish it this week, and, of course, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is nearly there, too. This week, I started into Soul of a Vampire by Lauralynn Elliott, a book I’ve had forever and have been meaning to get to, but it just kept getting buried because I have a lot of goddamn books. Well, it finally resurfaced, and I seized the chance to crack it open when I could.

Tomorrow, I’m hoping to get up my wonderful, thoughtful interview with this month’s Featured Poem from World Unknown Review Volume III. If you haven’t had a chance to read Ribhu‘s stirring poem, “Stretching Out, Remembering Names” yet, I recommend you do so, and then come back and get to know him a little better tomorrow with the interview. There’s some really good stuff in there; he’s an exceptionally thoughtful and introspective young man.

And speaking of the World Unknown Review, I’m starting to finally get some submissions rolling in for Volume IV. Not a lot, it’s still pretty early, but it’s always exciting when something new lands in my inbox with “World Unknown Review Submission” stamped on the top! So far, I’ve already even received a wide variety of work from various places…five different countries and four different continents already! When I started WUR, I had no idea of being so far reaching so soon, despite World being in the title, but it’s such a thrill for me knowing that it’s a name being recognized out there across the globe. I’m hoping its new listing on Poets & Writers will definitely help.

Writing: Just one rejection last week, continuing the glacial pace of news on all the stories I have out, putting me at 57. And still no acceptances for June, which makes me sad about losing my potential one-story-a-month acceptance rate. I’m still pumping out stories and sending something out nearly every day to help improve my chances, though, and turning my focus on some anthology projects. I just spent the morning researching the mummy of Xin Zhui for an upcoming Quantum Corset anthology. Lately, I’ve been really bad about starting submissions for these things and never finishing them, but now that I’ll have more time off of the Dreaded Day Job, I’ll start getting better about it. Still, this is a story that’ll be historical and involve research, which I haven’t done in a while, as well as involving Communist China, which I also haven’t done in a while, so I’m eager for that aspect of it. I’m also nearly finished with a short story about a young woman who literally lost her mind, so it’ll be fun seeing where I can ship that off to once it’s ready.

‘Rithmatic: As I mentioned, the beginning of my week is going to be filled with some overdue mother-daughter bonding time, while the latter part of my week is going to be work, work, work to make up for taking four days off. Worth it, though! I’ve got a bunch of things vaguely planned, but I’m also keeping things open to see where the wind sends us. Today there will definitely be some lunch at Native Foods Cafe and hopefully catching Wonder Woman at Hollywood Blvd. I remember my mom always singing the “Wonder Woman” theme song and pretending to twirl like Lynda Carter, so it’s definitely something I think would be cool for us to see together (although, spoiler alert, this Wonder Woman didn’t twirl once in the movie, much to my disappointment. Unless I missed it, but I was looking out for it pretty intensely).

And that’s pretty much that. I’m off to try to find a good place to send my story about a ghost girl on a train, and then I’ve got to get ready to hop on a train downtown for a really great, exciting week.

Happy writing!