I actually kind of like this rejection letter I received yesterday for a humorous, paranormal-esque story I wrote:

Thanks for the sub. It was humorous (in a creepy sort of way) and smartly written, but I’m sorry to say it was not really our cup of tea. We thank you for thinking of us, though, and we hope that you keep writing and submitting. 

It’s always nice to know my writing is creepy.

Right now I’m working on a monster story of sorts. Not really humorous, this story, but odd for sure. I’m a little over 1,000 words in. I’m really just trying to avoid working on my zombie novel.

Oh, and Grand:PM, the band I mentioned in my last post, is totally rocking my ear drums. If you’re into punky powerpop, you should definitely check out their album, Party in Your Basement.

So, there are lots of songs with girls’ names in the title, like, “Rio” by Duran Duran, “Valleri” by The Monkees, “Believe Me, Natalie” by The Killers, “Melanie” by “Weird Al” Yankovic, “Sarah” by Starship, “Wendy” by The Beach Boys, and only about a million others. But are there any songs about Stephanie? I didn’t think so. So, dork that I am, I searched the iTunes store and found two awesome songs with my name in the title:

“Stephanie” by Grand:PM
“Stephanie” by Hail Social

Not only are these awesome songs, but they have my name in them, which makes them superextrawesome. I’d never heard of either of these bands before, but they are now on my Awesomest Bands Ever list for immortalizing my name in song. Go buy their albums, buy concert tickets, or whatever to show them your appreciation of putting my name to music. ;-P

Well, maybe it’s not that old, but I recently received an acceptance letter for some poems I sent out, oh, about six years ago. It had to be 2001 or 2002. It arrived at my parents old house in January, and the new owners sent it to my parents a couple of weeks ago. The editor mentioned I should have received my contributor’s copy by now. Uhh, no. I haven’t lived at that house since 2004, my parents moved outta there in 2005, and the new owners aren’t that diligent about getting stray mail to us.

So . . . yeah . . . apparently, a poem of mine appeared in Krax sometime in the past six years or so. I don’t think they have any kind of web presence or way to order copies online. Oh, well. I think it’s pretty funny that I still occasionally get random letters from my days as a poet.

In zombie novel news, well, I just haven’t been in the mood to touch it. Chapter 3 is full of backstory and is rather action-less and Chapter 4 is only two pages right now. Blech. Once I break through this plateau of dullish chapters, I’ll be well on my way to some great zombie-stompin’ action, but right now, I just don’t wanna look at it. :-\

Just in case you’re curious, here’s a list of upcoming publications!

“Visions of Hummus-cide” in Bewildering Stories, May 2008
“The Sophomore’s Compleat Guide to Political Espionage” in Sheroe’s Rag, June 2008
“The Other Job” in Big Pulp, Fall 2008
“Brimstone and Liars” in The Rose and Thorn, Winter 2008
“Drew’s Unfortunate Island Adventure,” in OMG! The Book of Awesome Stuff, date unknown.

I just sold my first YA story! “The Sophomore’s Compleat Guide to Political Espionage” will appear in the June 2008 issue of Sheroes Rag. The poor story had been rejected seven times (and revised three or four times), and I was starting to wonder if I’d ever find a home for it! Hooray!

“Brimstone and Liars” will appear in the Winter 2008 issue of The Rose & Thorn! Yay!

Work continues on the zombie novel. I sent Chapter 2 to my crit group last week. I’m ready to be through with it, but there’s still so much work to be done! Gah!

Where have I been? Neck deep in my zombie novel mostly. I sent chapter 1 out to my novel crit group, and revisions on chapter 2 are coming along steadily. The main hurdle is getting all the details right when one of my characters loses part of a limb. Fun stuff. I ended up completely scrapping the original first chapter and rewriting it from scratch. That’s how it goes sometimes . . .

I just received my copy of Dayshift Werewolf from the 3-Day Novel Contest site. It was the 2005 winner, and I’m looking forward to reading it. I’m also working on Dirty Money, from Manic D Press. It’s definitely something I would have eaten up and worshipped in high school, the whole punk-artist girls following her dreams, trying to find her place in this crazy world, trying to avoid the usual 9-to-5 drudgery.

And finally, there’s the backlog of random stuff I’ve written over the last few months in need of revision. I’ll get to it someday, so long as this zombie novel doesn’t kill me first.

What’s up with this time change crap? I like the fact that it won’t get dark so early, but geez, the first day or two always fly by way too fast, not to mention, I lose a valuable hour of sleep. If I were president, there would be no more time changes. When I was a kid, I didn’t mind it so much, but now that I’m old and feeble (i.e., 26) and have a day job, that lost hour of sleep is pretty devastating.

I’ve been hammering away on my zombie NaNo novel nonstop since Friday, and I’m fairly pleased with how it’s coming along. The only thing I’m a little unhappy with is the narrative voice in a few places, but I’m hoping feedback from my yet-to-be-formed novel crit-group will be able to give me some pointers for improving that. I still haven’t written an ending for the thing. I have the old ending I wrote, but it’s atrocious and will be rightfully discarded. I have an idea for a new ending, a far simpler ending than the old one. Let’s hope it actually works when I get there!

After letting it lie for a while, I’m working on my NaNo novel again. My frustration with the ending was what caused me to put it aside, but after having a little epiphany, I’ve decided to dive back in. I might post a short excerpt from it soon.