In My Hands

Not only is it a cool song (okay, I suppose it is actually All Within My Hands if you want to be technical) but it was cool to hold it in my hands. I took the 53,000 word edition of Tales from the Laughing Grass and printed it out using MS Word's Book Fold format. It was surreal. Being the frickin' genius that I am, I looked at the stack of paper, than at the mighty appearing paper cutter there in the computer lab, and I proceeded to choppy-choppy. Of course I tried to choppy-choppy the stack all at once. You may be able to imagine how that went. Or you may not. If you can't and you decide to try it to find out, make sure you use scrap paper and not your one of a kind manuscript. Even if it is only one of a kind until you put another buck-and-a-half on your University card so you can print another. Anyways, I trimmed up the carnage as well as I could and swung by Kinkos to see if they could staple or bind it somehow. Because of the massacred edges, however, they deemed it impossible. They said to just let them cut it next time. It will only cost another buck-and-a-half to have them to choppy-choppy and and a few more bucks to bind it in a nice fashion. In spite of the self-imposed setback it felt incredible to hold that stack of stories in my hands and talk with Elyena about how we got to this point. It is very satisfying, even in the face of the work still ahead of us.

With a large handful of submission deadlines coming up, I thought I would throw out my picks for the stuff I'm going to try my hand at in the next little while. I am considering "A Day in the Sun", "The Traveler's Gift", "Toll Man", and "To Turn on One's Own" for upcoming events. Nothing is set in stone. I feel at right now that I am too close to the stories to objectively rate their odds at various venues, but Elyena is trying to help with the issue. Suggestions are welcome.

So that is what is going on in the realm of my writing (besides class work, and my Cather paper was such a hit I don't think I will spend much time here addressing it unless I can't help myself) right now. Write on.

R.