Some recent events around here included Jay's piano fence party last weekend. He even has pictures posted here. There isn't a photo of me nor X, but that doesn't mean we weren't there to help. We arrived at Jay's in Portland at eleven in the morning and they were done erecting the piano fence by then.

However, it was still a party. Monks blessed the fence and we had readings. Jerry Oltion read first, I read my Denise Little workshop story, and Aynjel read her upcoming Strange Horizons story, and I wanted Jay to thrill us with a reading of Goat Cutter from Lake Wu, but he read Trick Of Disaster instead.

Since we were in Portland, before we drove home we visited Powell's. I bought Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn, an issue of Third Alternative, and Mystic River by Dennis Lehane.

Of course that was last weekend. Since then, I've enjoyed more Reggae coffees at McMenamins. I guess I like it better than the Spanish coffee. Less sweet. Just so I don't sound like I've been spending my evenings getting drunk on expensive alcohol coffee drinks, we've only been there once more since I last mentioned it here. It's fall, it's rainy, and the drinks are cozy, ya know?

As for this weekend, on Saturday I went to Kate's place for the monthly workshop. Read and critiqued four stories. We went to the Fortune Inn for Chinese food. The fortune I got at the end of the meal read: "Next month will be your most profitable month of the year." This is funny because I should be on seasonal layoff then. It won't be a profitable month as far as money is concerned. Unless I sell a story somewhere BIG. Or maybe November will be profitable because of a high word count. Come what may, November.

So this next week I need to write pitches for the Surrey Writers Conference. Doing more work on revising the novel would be good too.

Stories 2003
Circulating:	7
Rejections:	15
On Desk:	4
New:	3
Sales:	-

Novels 2003
Circulating:	0
On Desk:	1