Wednesday, May 16, 2018
Grad-ical!
I'll make this update quick--because odds are I'm currently job hunting.
As of this past weekend, I have graduated college with my English major! I'll likely post which college it was someday, but I'm a little busy at the moment, so that may have to wait.
On a more somber note, I have--for now--discontinued my webcomic Lab Rules. It's going to be hard letting them fall to the side, but there are more than a few hundred comics in their archives that you can read, and who knows? Maybe with enough support, ideas, and time, the laboratory suicide squad will make a comeback.
See you again soon! Thanks for your support.
Tuesday, May 1, 2018
Short Story Short Story
Weird things keep happening when my short stories get
published.
So last weekend Daily Science Fiction published the second short
story they’ve accepted from me: “The DSF Rejection Ceremony”. The origins of this
story and its process unto acceptance were strange enough; I’ve
written about it here already.
(That’s a lot of links for an opening paragraph. Let’s
see if I can’t tone it down a little.)
Maybe a strange environment is just the natural state in
which my short stories are published. Now that I think about it, that was the
theme for my previous full post.
(OK, there went another link. I’ve got to knock it off
now.)
Heck, when my last DSF story got
published, it happened when I was studying abroad in Europe.
(NO. STOPPIT.)
It doesn’t help that DSF does not tell its accepted
contributors when their stories will be published. After we sign our contracts,
there’s not much else to do but wait and keep an eye on our email inbox. I do
not criticize DSF for this informational gap—as long as there’s a good reason
for it, such as shuffling schedules or something like that. At any rate, the
point of all this is to say that I had no idea that “The DSF Rejection Ceremony”
was coming out last weekend, which made things that much more interesting.
On that Friday morning, the first issue was that I
needed more sleep.
I’m graduating college this month (yay), so as a
decently-performing member of higher education my sleep schedule naturally gets
pretty wacked out. I thought I was in for a treat when I woke up, looked at my
watch, and saw that it was only 6:30 a.m. My first class on MWF starts at 9
a.m. “Great,” I thought. “I can get some more sleep.” So I did.
Then at 7:30 I figured, as long as the spring hours were
brightening up my room this early, I might as well get up and get stuff done.
Breakfast and Viking literature sounded pretty good. Rolling over, I looked at
another clock in the room.
Which read 8:30.
Huh.
I double-checked my watch. After a moment’s observation
and reflection, I began to regret three things: one, that I use my watch’s
stopwatch function to time how long I need to brush my teeth before I go to
bed; two, that my absent-mindedness sometimes forgets to turn off that stopwatch after I’m done
brushing; and three, that my watch’s stopwatch looks way too much like my regular time display.
There would have been much more swearing if this had
happened any earlier in the morning, I tell you.
After some quick prayers, I launched myself from my bed
to my phone…where I noticed there was a little more activity than usual. The
urgent folder of my email had two messages instead of one. One was the normal
DSF story, and the second was that same story again—only forwarded to me by my
older brother (also a writer). He’d attached a message to that email too. One
word.
“Nice.”
Then I began to realize why Twitter and Facebook
notifications were popping up.
But Our Hero had no time to meditate on—or even read—all
of his phone’s activity. He had to book it up the hill to a journalism class,
which he did just in time. Breakfast got postponed a little, and before I got
any Viking Lit reading done I responded to the kind messages I’d received from
readers. There were some good ones too. Here are a few examples:
@ultrasonnek Enjoyed your DSF today! Irony-tinged, but hearty chuckles all round.— Sarah Jugsy (@sarah_k_j) April 27, 2018
Really enjoyed your @DailySF story today, @ultrasonnek! Very meta. Much irony. :) I'll never see a DSF rejection in quite the same way!— Eleanor R. Wood (@erwrites) April 27, 2018
And finally, one of the highest pieces of writing praise
I’ve ever received…
@ultrasonnek The only story I've ever given 7 rocket dragons. @DailySF #flashfic #FlashFiction #SciFiChat #rejection— Joanne Roberts (@BookishAmbition) April 27, 2018
Overall, in spite of the weird start…Friday was a pretty
good day.
Thanks for reading!
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