How In The World Did It Get To Be June Already?

[dr_phil_physics]

A Busy Month Of May

I haven't quite done the writing I wanted to get in this first half of Sabbatical 1.21, but that's largely been my fault -- and probably a good thing, too. The office at work needed cleaning, and that's started, with the critical work of wiring in a new Internet phone accomplished. And I spent a good amount of time starting on fixing up my website dr-phil-physics.com. Hope to have the next level of revisions rolled in by 06.06.2010. This thing about trying to do a good job on one's own website is that sometimes there are tasks that just take a long time to get the data entry and coding to look right.

Then there are things like getting our calendars arranged for the next couple of weeks and months -- and then last week going over to Hope College and getting our annual season tickets (since 1997) for the Hope Summer Repertory Theatre when their box office opened.

The Last Few Days

Already this week I feel like I put in a Real Writer's Life work week -- and it's only Wednesday!

Sunday I checked over the proof page for my comments for the 25th Anniversary Writers of the Future coffee table book. You know, 25 years × 12 winners/years = 300 authors + additional Published Finalists like moi. Not everyone contributed comments, so to get nearly a full page in the book, which is also supposed to be chock full of pictures and not comments from writers, is making me feel pretty special. Yeah, I think the WOTF contest was helpful to me, even before I was tapped for Volume XXIV.

Since I didn't come close to finishing the story I started a year ago, Monday was the big push to finish my Memorial Day-II story and post it. Which reminds me that part of the 06.06.2010 revisions for dr-phil-physics.com has to be a better list of any and all stories I've posted for free either here on my LJ or on my website -- or as published stories.

Tuesday began the new month and I managed to get two submissions in the afternoon and then squeezed one more submission in before dinner. Helpful to keep track of new markets and when markets re-open to submissions. And even when I forget about one, or let a date slip by, thankfully other writers make note of these things, too. Cathrynne M. Valente yuki_onna is the new fiction editor at Apex Magazine effective 1 June 2010, so that was the third sub I sent out. (grin)

Then Tuesday night I had to finish my essay for the Pyr 25th Anniversary on "Five Reasons Why Science Fiction and Fantasy are Important to Me." How do I love thee? Let me count the ways... What? Only five reasons? And under 1500 words? Eeek! Talk about agonizing over the things you love. I don't dare hope that my essay will be the top dog in this contest, but the top prize is to get flown to Atlanta for DragonCon over Labor Day weekend as Pyr's guest. My sister lives in Atlanta and has been begging me to come to DragonCon for years. So I did try really hard and I did get it in before 11pm. (grin) Of course this morning I got an email saying that the Rules said I had to submit a street address and I'd sent the P.O. Box address. For the record, though, the HTML website just said "address (within the Continental United States)" -- it was in the separate PDF file where it had "street address (within the Continental United States)", so it's not like I'm totally nuts. I go over Submission Guidelines pretty closely, but had been looking at the cut-and-paste file I'd saved from the HTML site, not the PDF. (whew)

Then late night Tuesday I had to go back to my work file and make sure I made all the updates to my submission tracking and make sure I was up to date with all that. Currently I have 12 stories out to market, which is the highest number so far in 2010 -- I've been mostly between 9 and 11 all year. In March, I noted that I'd shipped my 300th submission to any market. Back on May 25th, I achieved my 300th result of any kind. It was, as statistically realistic, a rejection of course. (grin)

Well, No Wonder!

That's a lot of things worked on, so I guess that's where May went to. We welcome our new June-ish overlord masters and hope to placate them with good works, too. 'Cause when July 1st rolls around, we'll be back in the classroom, double-time, for Summer-II Session. (grin)

Dr. Phil

Comments

[steve-buchheit.livejournal.com]

Yep, just turned around and we went from April to June. Where the heck did May get to? Sneaky little thing.

[dr-phil-physics.livejournal.com]

People don't understand that when you aren't going to work every day that time FLIES. Maybe things will slow down to normal when class starts on 1 July. (grin)

Dr. Phil

[steve-buchheit.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. And it flies for absolutely no good reason. I start the new job in a week. Was hoping to get ahead of class work and rewrites. Scrambling just to keep up. Sigh.

[dr-phil-physics.livejournal.com]

I think what it shows is how much we put off from our lives while we are working. Then we tend to travel while "on vacation" -- and things STILL don't get done. I was listening to a piece on NPR this morning and they were talking about how the economic downturn and job losses actually showed a lot of people all the things they were missing -- and as they get back to work, they are not letting themselves get into the old rat race ruts. (grin)

Dr. Phil

[wendyb-09.livejournal.com]

1st - Congrats on making the WOTF anniversary edition! Don't remember you mentioning it before. Now I've got to figure out how to get all the authors I know to autograph their respective stories...

And glad you made the deadline for the contest with the DragonCon trip! I'd cross my fingers, but it makes it a little hard to type!!

[dr-phil-physics.livejournal.com]

It's not the stories, it's a 25th anniversary celebration of the contest.

So my contribution is a quote from me about what the contest has meant to me. (And 2 pictures -- grin). As a contributor to the writing of the book, I get a free copy. (double-grin)

Dr. Phil