Yes, I must admit, my friends rock.

My fellow writer here in the Raleigh area, Scott Reilly just sold his first pro story! Amazing -- the guy's only been submitting for a year, and he's already made his first professional sale. I'd be jealous if it wasn't such a kick-ass sale.

His story "Layabouts," which is a zombie story, will be published in The Book of Final Flesh, which is a sequel to the two other zombie anthos, The Book of All Flesh and The Book of Final Flesh. Yes, I know they sound like porno books, but they're about zombies!

So huge congrats to Scott -- he's worked really hard to get to this point, revising this story about 20 times, and writing about 100 stories this past year, honing his storytelling skills. That's the ticket, you see -- PERSISTENCE.

And speaking of cool friends, I received my signed and numbered copy of Floodwater, the annual holiday chapbook by writing pals Tim Pratt and Heather Shaw. The chapbook is beautifully done, with three great, magical stories and nicely-done illustrations for each. I think my favorite story is their collaboration, "A Serious Case of Fairies," with its nifty concept of a couple dealing with their messy house (and the pint-size cause of that mess), though I quite liked the weirdness of Heather's "Wetting the Bed," with kids floating around the world (which has been flooded) on their beds, tied together like rafts. Neato! And Tim's short-short "The Heart, a Chambered Nautilus" is nicely WEIRD.

And my copy of the chapbook was #41, which means there are only 40 people cooler than me, in Tim and Heather's eyes! (I'm kidding, folks!)

Now that I think about it, my friend James Hartley sold two novels this year, that hard-working Aussie! I can't wait to get a copy of his Wyrmhole (he sent me his proposal package so I could see how he sold it), under his pen name Jay Caselberg, coming soon from Roc. Another case of me feeling jealous just maybe a tiny bit... But I can't really feel bad because like Scott, James works his butt of at writing, and he has learned the fine art of networking like no one else I know.

Also, fellow Cup-A-Prose writer Jason Lundberg has sold TWO stories in the past month, both to the same place, a magazine called The Dream Engine. And he's getting an excellent artist to illustrate his stories. Jason is a new writer who I feel is going places -- he just has to get cracking on that novel now!

Hmmm... Now I'm really starting to get itchy for a sale myself. All my friends are doing it, why can't I???

As I said earlier, I have cool friends. They are all creative as hell, and I'm proud of 'em all. They make me want to be a better writer. Later!