Reading: Hidden Empire by Kevin Anderson
Music: Joni Mitchell
TV/Movie: Excalibur
Link o' the Day: lyrics to the song, "The Sleeping Scotsman"

Work continues. I keep getting last-minute changes on some of the books I'm working on. I can't wait to get the current group of jobs off to the printers for good. Pretty Maggie and I are going away for a few days in the beginning of March and it will be nice to have a fairly clean slate.

And whose bright idea was it to schedule one of the more major east coast SF conventions on Valentine's Day? Okay, so Valentine's Day doesn't always fall on a weekend, but one might have thought to schedule the convention a weekend ahead or behind to accomodate. It's not like SF fen don't have romantic lives. Bring Pretty Maggie along and make a day of it? Well, I do have myself a geek-girl, but she's not the kind of geek-girl who does conventions. We're still in negotiation to getting her up to Noreascon for one day.

In any case, I'm looking forward to Boskone, tho I'll only be up there during the day on Saturday. Look for the guy in the black hat.

* * *
I sent a story off to Boy's Life yesterday. It's hard to find short fiction markets for YA stories. I have little doubt that the story is going to be rejected--not because it's a bad story--it's actually very good, but because it's around 7,000 words and their word limit is something like 2,000. I'm usually much more careful about following guidelines, but hey--nothing ventured, nothing gained. I have another market lined up for the story should it be needed. After that, however.... dunno. Anyone know any good short fiction markets for young-adult fiction?

At last count, I think I have four stories out in slushpiles. One is overdue for a response (the Anthology from Hell market has already been sending out rejections and contracts. I sent the editor my change-of-address, and trust that my having moved during the slush time won't slow up the response much). I'm also wondering about the story I sent to F&SF. I may be jinxing it by talking about it, but usually they send back a response in a week if they're planning on rejecting it. We're coming up on the third week now and I'm wondering if that means it made it past the first cut. (I shouldn't be too surprised if that's the case. This story made it past the first cut at Analog, just not the second.)

I have a couple of more stories that are being prepped for heading to markets again, and a couple of new stories in the works. I love this business!

* * *
Today's link goes to a site with lyrics to the song, "The Sleeping Scotsman" which is easily one of the most amusing folk songs ever. It's been covered by hundreds of artists and I imagine it wouldn't be too difficult to find in some CD rack or MP3 listing.

Cheers!