Part-time prevaricator
Cassini, the little probe that could, has finished its mission in the Saturn system with a suicide dive into the gas giant’s clouds.
It sent back myriad images and countless other data, improving our understanding of the solar system.
Thanks, Cassini. Much obliged.
It was gorgeous out this weekend, simply beautiful. Highs of 29°C Saturday and Sunday. So I washed, like, all the laundry in my house and hung it on the line to dry on Saturday.
My neighbours decided to have themselves a fire in their backyard fire pit, about an hour before I brought my laundry in.
Long story short, every shirt I put on now smells like camping. Not that I’m complaining.
I really like my short story “The Overnight Shift”. I wrote it last summer, in a weekend, at the start of my 2016 writer’s retreat. It was originally written as a contest entry in the NYC Midnight flash fiction contest.
Since I wrote it, I’ve been trying to sell it. It’s right at the 1,000-word mark, making it what they term flash fiction. There are a decent number of paying markets for flash fiction, and I was starting to think I was going to have to try them all.
That is a screenshot of my Submission Grinder screen for “The Overnight Shift”. The numbers in the square brackets at the end? That’s [the number of current open submissions for a piece / the number of submissions this year / the number of all-time submissions]. Those 14 are all the times I’ve sent this piece out into the world. 13 times running, it was rejected (twice it made it to the second round, where it was then pruned).
And finally, this week, I sold it. It will appear sometime in November in The Arcanist, a relatively new online SF/F ’zine featuring flash fiction.
I’ll be sure to post here when it goes live. Trust me, you won’t be able to keep me quiet about it.
It seems I’m on the clock.
Also, this is really happening.
I just can’t help myself.
Last night was a perfect night for it. There was some serious aurora going on for a while, too:
Today I came across the details of the death of my namesake, Pilot Officer Thomas Patrick Quinn, in Oct. 1943:
At 16.05hrs Mosquito DD738 struck Mosquito HJ713 [Patrick’s plane] from behind while the aircraft were flying at around 7,000 feet…
RIP, T. P. Quinn.
Click through for the whole album.
I recently finished my re-read of Gene Wolfe’s Fifth Head of Cerberus. Feeling pretty smug, thinking I’d caught a lot more than I’d picked up on first reading it, I Googled fifth head of cerberus analysis, which led me to a passel of articles on Ultan’s Library, including Proving Veil’s Hypothesis [warning: many, many spoilers] . And… wow.
I had no idea.
I still have no idea.
But I’m glad there’s at least one writer out there as subtle, as sneaky, as sly, as Gene Wolfe.
Yesterday’s email: one rejection; one notification that I’ve been approved for my first-ever writing grant, through the Manitoba Arts Council.
Woohoo!
As is rapidly becoming tradition, I spent most of the last week of July in a friend’s cabin up at Minnedosa. (Thanks, Karen & Ed!) My goals for the week are posted here, and here’s how it went:
I have a complete outline for the POV’s arc, which is the most critical as it’s narrated in the first person.
Also, I had a major epiphany about the POV character, one that will shake up the last ⅔ of the book.
I wrote 12,500 words in Translations, the bulk of it written as I sat on the deck, pretty much all alone in the cottage area.
Yeah, that turned out okay.
Having access to a car this year really helped me get to the dark places (literally) so that I could get some great photos of the night sky.
Also, I sold a print of one of my photos to a friend. (Thanks, Brianne!) Does that mean I’m a pro now?
Well. My bike’s left pedal arm has been coming loose more and more frequently. It’s got to go into the shop. On my first ride in Minnedosa, I had to stop twice to tighten the pedal arm, both times on my way up a hill. So after that, feh to bike riding. (At least, my bike in its current condition.)
Fortunately, I had access to a kayak (thanks, Carla!), so I put in about 15 km of paddling time, going up and down the lake.
I read James S. A. Corey’s amazing Leviathan Wakes, courtesy of my public library’s e‑book program. I’m now hooked, and need to read the rest of the Expanse saga.
I also re-read the first ⅔ of Gene Wolfe’s subtle and mysterious The Fifth Head of Cerberus, which, I’m not gonna lie, probably had at least a little bit to do with my aforementioned epiphany. (It’s also the first Wolfe novel I’ve re-read, and it’s amazing how much less confusion I feel, how much more I’m picking up.)
And we bought a second car, which is why I could have a vehicle to go gallivantin’ around the countryside, looking for dark locations to get photos like this:
I think that went well.