Ah, yes, sometimes life has a way of coming back to let you know that things are, indeed, good after all.

Having overcome my writer's funk from last week, thanks to being SLAMMED at work, I came home yesterday to a nice surprise in the mail -- a check for $116.98 from Fictionwise! My first real royalty check (okay, so I got one for a small-press antho a couple years back, but that was for like $.25!). Looks like my 15 stories at that fine website, all reprints, have been selling pretty well -- I had over 800 downloads since the page went live in late spring.

Of course, that's probably the biggest royalty check I'll get from them, as sales have pretty much died off, as far as I can tell. It's funny -- my SF stories have sold the most. Number one was "Working the Game," which I thought was nifty. Then "Mud and Salt" and "Wantaviewer" and "Explosions," three stories from my SF novel, another good sign. "Crossing the Camp" sold well, but not as much, probably because it has a priest as a main character, and that may have scared folks off, thinking it would be a religious tale.

I'm happy about it, and the money came in handy at the bookstore last night (more on that in a second!), and I'm thinking of sending Fictionwise three more stories for reprinting. Got to keep food on the table and the fans happy!!! ;)

So we went out last night to spend that check, and we stopped at Quail Ridge books to pick up the copy of The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror they'd ordered for me, and I immediately flipped to the back and found out I had THREE Honorable Mention stories in there. Holy shit! I wasn't expecting to have anything in there.

I was quite pleased to see that "Goddamn Redneck Surfer Zombies" had made it in, one of my all-time favorite stories, along with another personal fave, "Visions of Suburban Bliss." I was pleasantly surprised to see my fat-farm-meets-Scientologish-religion-with-edible bugs tale, "A Feast at the Manor," was also mentioned, from small webzine NeverWorlds (which has since stopped publishing, alas). Quite a nice little treat.

So of course we had to go out to eat to celebrate, and we ended up at Tir Na Nog, one of three Irish pubs in downtown Raleigh. Had a couple Guinness and a Boxty, and Elizabeth had some kick-ass French onion soup, and we listened to some young fellas playing some impressive bluegrass while we ate. Quite a nice way to end the day.

And of course this morning I've been poring over the rest of the Honorable Mentions, looking for my fellow writing friends. Congrats to Tim Pratt, Heather Shaw, Jay Lake, James Hartley, Nick Mamatas, all four of the Ratbastards, Mark Siegel, Drew Williams, Scott Nicholson, Ben Rosenbaum, and all the other writers in the book. Later!