I threw the stories I accepted for Flytrap 2 into the template last night, to see how long they are. There's about as much fiction as there was in the first issue, maybe a little more by word count. I read them all again, and started thinking about order. I know which one should be the lead story, and which one to have as the anchor story in the middle, and which one to close with. Now I just have to figure out where the others go, which depends a lot on the poetry that Heather accepts. There's going to be more non-fiction than last time, and probably about as much poetry. Issue #2 might have more pages than #1 did -- or we might just have fewer pieces of art and fewer reviews. We'll figure it out. Very fun. I love putting this zine together. I should have been doing other work last night -- I mean, we don't need to start production on Flytrap 2 for months yet -- but I wanted to relax, and working on our little toothy 'zine was just the thing. It's fun.

I started a Flytrap topic on my The Third Alternative board. Go, post, tell us what you like about the first issue, what you don't like, etc. We'd like to get some feedback from y'all good people.

Speaking of The Third Alternative, I got the new issue yesterday, and it's scrumptious as always. I read my fellow Rio-Hondoan David Ira Cleary's story, "The Automatic Circus", last night, and it's marvelous -- with the added benefit, for me, that I hear David's voice as the narrator's. It's very bizarre and New Weird-ish, and reminiscent of Miéville or K.J. Bishop or Jeff VanderMeer (though, of course, VanderMeer does not self-identify with the New Weird; I don't mean the two are synonymous, but that David's story reminds me of both). I'm looking forward to digging my teeth into the new Lucius Shepard novella today. My name is mentioned in the coming attractions section, too. I find that the appearance of my name in a magazine somehow mysteriously increases my enjoyment of said magazine...

I got my first shipment of Little Gods hardcovers. Last night I fondled and inscribed them lovingly, and will begin mailing them today. (I can't mail them all today, because I ran out of envelopes, so some will go out Monday.) I'm sending them priority mail, so they'll be coming to you soon! I'm placing another order for more hardcovers tomorrow, so if you want to order one, signed, for $28.00, go ahead.

It's another workend. We've been working on getting the last Flytraps in the mail, and organizing our records, and so forth, this morning. I need to get the next issue of Star*Line together (though there's still no sign of the previous issue, sigh), and I have some reading to do for review purposes, and, of course, I hope to get to the Frog novel at some point, since it's been sorely neglected this week. This afternoon we're going to Berkeley to check the PO Box, and maybe see a movie or something, because weekends do need a bit of frivolity, after all.

Two weeks until my vacation. I'm not exactly counting the days, but the vacation is shining on the horizon like a gleaming city of gold. I hope to finish the draft of the Frog novel during that week off. Should be doable, maybe, if I get a fair bit done in the next two weeks. Either way, it should be intense. I'm really looking forward to it.