Withering on the vine

Well, I came off of my "break" today.

The first week of classes is over, with only one miss due to some car trouble Friday morning, and I have a decent idea of what is expected. Let me start by saying I screwed up and bad. I was expecting a few bunny courses for my last semester of higher learning, and instead signed myself up for some reading/work intensive courses. I would like to say now, though, that I am not a quitter, and therefore refuse to drop any of them. Nothing good comes without a little work, and if I work hard I learn. Besides, I have to say that I am interested in each topic I signed up for, and am more than willing to learn something new from them all even if it does bite into my personal time a bit.

Tonight I came home after dinner with my folks, where Desi and I spent a couple hours discussing wedding plans with my mother, to work on a creative writing prompt and get a little course reading done. The writing prompt was going to be 500 words based on a phrase he gave us, and I figured that I would start that, get it done, and then return to my blissful ignorance for the next week before actually sitting down and starting on the next story I'd send out for publication. A half-hour later, I realized that the prompt was the swift kick in the ass I needed to finally start work on the father/son story I had wandering about the back of my head. So I can say I fell off the writing wagon and have now added working on a story to my list of January stresses.

I'm going to stay on top of this one, as I'd like to have the first draft done by the end of the month.

I have another submission floating around out there, a piece of very short fiction (2,000 words) called "The Ignoble Birth of Tucker Talbott". I submitted it with The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, a non-paying e-market. The story itself isn't very good in my opinion, so I won't be heartbroken if it doesn't get accepted. I wrote it while half-drunk on a bottle of Australian Port in the "house from hell" that Desi and I lived in before moving into our apartment. While I would like to see it on a site with some readership, I can live just as well with getting a rejection and slamming it up here or over on my Author's Den website.

Still waiting to hear back on the King Arthur story. I haven't been rejected out of hand yet, so I'm hoping for at least a personal rejection letter from them. The zombie story hasn't been out long enough to hope for a personal rejection. I sorta want to get them back so I can do another rewrite and send them out to the small game markets, but patience, right? Right.

Finally saw The World According to Garp the other night. Freakin' hilarious. Loved every second of it.

If you're reading this and you haven't gotten over to Allegory Ezine yet to read "A Question of Freedom", do it. Then tell your friends, or at least post a scathing review of it.

Until Next Time,

J.C. Tabler