So, this year’s Clarion West Write-a-thon is proving to be a challenge. After struggling with Week 2 and thinking I had Week 3 sussed, I flew to Seattle for an agency retreat and ended up staying through the weekend.

As amazing and useful as the retreat was, it wasn’t conducive to writing.

So I’m behind. Again. Amazing how quickly that happened.

However, I am going to complete my goals. Even if it takes me longer than anticipated. Those who have sponsored me already will get what I’ve promised. Those who have yet to sponsor me will get what’s promised as well. I just anticipate much of the work getting done next week.

I did manage to get out to a Clarion West party this past Friday, though, and I’ll say that the current crop of students has inspired me. What I do with this write-a-thon, I do partially in their honor, as well as in honor of my CW classmates.

So, lagging but hardly lost…

It’s now Week 3 of the Clarion West Write-a-thon, though because I lost a week it’s my second week writing. Last week went okay. I’m easing back into short story writing. I came up with a new idea, and it has a start and finish, but the ideas are still developing so the draft I wrote is still being revised. But I’ve begun on this week’s story already, so I expect that these will be finished in stages with revisions continuing into the weeks when I’m working on new drafts.

Last week’s story was science fiction, a rare thing for me these days, though this week’s is more science fantasy.

Thank you to all who sponsored me already. I appreciate the support and, of course, the support for the workshop. I’m still looking for sponsors, though, and don’t forget that there are rewards for different levels of support.

If you’d like to donate/sponsor me in the workshop, please go to this page and click on Donate.

I was looking through my folders just now and came across a song I had recorded the last time N was traveling. It was part of an audio package I sent with her. It’s awfully raw (my voice is off in several places) — I had allergies at the time — and the guitar work isn’t great, but I thought, fuck it, let me post this. It was just gathering dust anyway.

Hope you like it.

Fairy Tale Princess

In addition to my writing for Tor.com and LitReactor.com, I’m happy to announce that I’m doing comics reviews (and maybe the occasional article for Talking Comics. They’re a great site devoted to comics, and they’re starting to grow. If you are interested in comics, please give them a look. I’ll be contributing many more reviews in the coming weeks.

In recent news, I sold two reprints this month. The first was to Escape Pod, who is taking my story, “Flowing Shapes.” The story originally appeared in the first issue of Basement Stories and I’m thrilled that it’s going to be heard by Escape Pod’s audience.

The second sale was to their sister podcast, Pseudopod. They will be podcasting my story, “Pumpkinhead”, which appeared in Shadows of the Emerald City.

I’ve narrated podcasts for all three of the Escape Artists sites – Podcastle, Escape Pod, and Pseudopod – now, so it’s also really cool to have stories of mine appear in all three.

I’ll post links when they go live.