Because I blogged yesterday for the first time in my life, this is what happened to my site stats: I never got that much traffic before. I hope I can keep this up. I figure that if nothing happens that's worth blogging about, then I'll talk about books (so that I'll appear smart) or maybe cooking-related (so that I'll sound like an all-around wholesome homemaker). I've been up and about all day, work-related stuff and non-work issues, usually there's no difference between the two. I wrote for the dayjob and wrote for my other writing life -- the one that's fun, the one that will lead to my eventual poverty. The first kind word from an unbiased source regarding my Insomnia chapbook is here. I see what Rise, the book blogger, reads in Goodreads. His reviews make me run for cover. Rise is clearly addicted to Bolaño. I don't even get the hype about Murakami. But he liked Insomnia, luckily, and I am relieved. Today, I also bought some genre digital lovelies and a book from The Book Depository. There's this stupid rule I follow on book/magazine buying. It is stupid, vindictive, and pointless, but I've stuck to it for many months now and have amassed a lot of very good books in the process (Matt Bell's, Michael Kimball's, Fictionwise/Weightless Books/Smashwords items, etc.). My rule of thumb is to prioritize buying the books written by people (or published by presses) who follow me back on Twitter. I feel that if a certain writer/publisher does not find me worth following back, then why bother. My money is certainly limited so I have to cut corners somewhere. I will miss out on potentially great stuffs, but I'll take my chances. So today, I scrolled down the followers list and bought these: Rhys Hughes, Flash in the Pantheon. I love the stories of Rhys Hughes. His stories have this witty, wise-assy vibe that doesn't sound contrived. I first encountered his work in an old print pulp magazine that accepted an early story of mine. I've been a fan ever since.
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Today is the best day to start a blog. 2012 is the Year of the Black Water Dragon in the Chinese zodiac. I am born in 1980, the Monkey year. I'm a lucky primate who will have an extraordinary year ahead -- just ask Madam Ganesha, my favorite quack, psychic extraordinaire, charges 99 cents a minute. :)
I am typing this on an old CQ60 inside my bedroom, looking out through a wide tinted sliding glass window to a yard full of trees and vehicles (my parents have a small trucking business so I see mechanical behemoths everywhere that don't complement the fantastic view). I slept through most of the new year's eve celebration. We did not light any firecrackers. Last night's ruckus has agitated the birds and the dogs. There are birds living inside the upper trunk of an old star apple tree. Birds really are birds; I will never understand the choices they make. Why live inside a cramped trunk when you can be comfortable while nestled within the branches? Writing-wise, 2012 starts off fabulously for me. January will see the release of my chapbook Insomnia with Medulla Publishing. Such an honor to have a chap to be released alongside the last collection of Hugh Fox, an influential proponent of the small presses. Popcorn Press has not contacted me yet, but my Grim Series is also scheduled for a January release. Later on this year, my chapbook with Thunderclap Press will be out. In April, Queen's Ferry Press will publish my first fiction book, We Bury the Landscape (originally titled as Imagine). It's made up of 100 little stories about different paintings. Erin Knowles McKnight, the coolest editor this side of the universe, has agonized over the nitty-gritties to create a book that is pristine, carefully copy-edited, perfect. Rereading a manuscript for the back-and-forth edits has driven me close to catatonia, but I love every moment of it. I'm proud of that book and how it evolved beautifully with the editorial direction of McKnight. I will have many forthcoming stories and poems. Two horror stories in Anobium (with a magazine name like that, how can I resist). Discounted pre-orders here. And here's the awesome cover: |
My BooksThe Drone Outside
Black Arcadia Meditations of a Beast Butterfly Dream Age of Blight Lifeboat A Roomful of Machines Grim Series We Bury the Landscape InterviewsBellingham Review
SmokeLong Quarterly Weird Fiction Review The Collagist SmokeLong Quarterly Kitaab SF Signal The Mangozine Carpe Noctem Blog Friends of Chômu Press Her Kind One Writer's Journey Flash Fiction Chronicles JMWW One Buck Horror Every Day is an Adventure Five-Minute Fridays Lisa Haselton's Blog Prick of the Spindle Connotation Press Philistine Press |