I find myself currently without work, one of the setbacks of working as a freelancer. On the phone this morning, my boss at the day job said they wouldn't have any drafting work for me this week, since things are a bit slow at present. Also, due to a clerical snafu, my paycheck for the last week I worked (before the YWW started) still hasn't arrived; apparently the genius in Winston-Salem who cuts the checks put mine down as to be paid on July 9 instead of a week and a half ago. Hopefully I'll be getting that in the next few days.

So, I have a bit of unexpected free time, which is really nice. A break is definitely needed after teaching the kiddies for the last two weeks. I've already been catching up on some reading, finishing up Michael Chabon's Summerland, which was excellent. He does the same kind of mythological pantheon pulling and mixing in this novel that Neil Gaiman and Tim Pratt enjoy doing. At 500 pages, it's a bit long for a YA novel (which it is marketed as, though it reads like much of what Charles de Lint writes, or Emma Bull), and I think the only reason it wasn't published as grown-up fiction is so that Chabon can still be considered a mainstream literary writer if his fantasy stories are geared toward kids. After all, the dude won the Pulitzer Prize; we can't have him being labeled a fantasy author! However you see it, I'd recommend it to anyone happening to read this journal, especially if you like baseball (Ol' Mike, I'm looking at you).

I also read the new Ratbastards chapbook, Petting Zoo, with stories by John Aegard, David Moles and Amber van Dyk standing out, though all of them were excellent. I then plowed through the fourth volume of the Hellboy collected trade paperbacks, and Richard Butner's new Small Beer Press chapbook, Horses Blow Up Dog City & Other Stories.

The other night, I realized how close the upcoming workshop is approaching, and printed out all the stories submitted, seven besides mine. I need to critique nearly 40,000 words of fiction in ten days. Not an impossible goal, since I did that in less time at Clarion, but Ms. Mary Anne has also requested we read "The Women Men Don't See," "Corona" and "The Heat Death of the Universe" so that we all have a common ground in our forthcoming discussions of the craft. I may save these last three for my eight-hour plane trip to Portland. So I guess this was a good week to be out of work, so that I can focus on getting these stories read and critiqued. My submission for the workshop is "Last Fare," which I'm also planning to include in my thesis, so I'm looking forward to getting some help on it.

Right now, I'm sipping some damn good coffee, flavored chocolate almond, I believe, and listening to Sting. My beautiful wife is tapping at her own keyboard behind me, and the sun is out this afternoon. The orange cat who snoozed in our patio chair for most of the day yesterday while it rained is not here today, but we'll see him around the apt complex and say hello. Later, we'll go out and try to sell some of my textbooks, and pay a visit to D.H. Hill Library so that Janet can find some Terry Pratchett books she's been craving. I can certainly imagine worse days.

Now Reading:
Stranger Than Fiction by Chuck Palahniuk
Strange Horizons Oregon Workshop submissions

Stories Out to Publishers:
7

Books Read This Year:
34

Zines/Graphic Novels/Fiction Mags Read This Year:
21