IT LIVES!

Thank you, Cate, for tagging me. It woke me out of my stupor and back into the internet.

Anyhow, here goes a short post and a long meme. First off, I'm bucking for a promotion at work, sort of. Lateral transfer, but a good chance that there's a pay bump involved.

Secondly, finished a few stories, but not sure where or when to shop them around. Right now I'm puttering through a draft of a submission for the Dead Bait anthology, as well as plunking out a few short shorts for personal amusement and outlining a longer piece, basically a restart of the NaNoWriMo piece that I blazed through half of before stopping to be a father again.

In short, I'm doing alright. 2008, my first year of submitting pieces to paying markets, started with an acceptance to Allegory and ended with an acceptance to Sand , with a couple of anthologies in between. All in all, I sold/had accepted 8-9 pieces (too lazy to do my exact count) under my name, and a couple off-the-beaten-track, embarrassing works under another name. Not a bad start, though I hope to do better next year...this year...whatever. Anyhow, goals are toned down. A story a month, something I can manage with the kids and the job right now, plus finishing this damn novel before this time next year. Along with trying to get the promotion at work, which takes me off the call floor and gives me back my evenings and weekends.

Anyhow, to Cate's MeMe:

Share seven facts about yourself in the post. Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.

1. I've always wanted to be a writer, but along the way I had several other professional choices, including cop, lawyer, psychologist, journalist, and history professor. I now work in insurance, pray to go to law school, and fully expect to one day actually sell a novel...moments before my death of old age.

2. My favorite job, to this day, remains bartending at night while working on a boat in the morning.

3. I'm a romantic. I admit it. Every relationship I'd had end in the past was followed by drinking binges and melancholy for months at a time. I view my DUI arrest as being a good thing, merely because it was recounting the tale of that arrest that got me noticed by my wife the first time we met.

4. I never intended to write horror, and remain a little disappointed that's where my effort is focused these days, althouh I find it to be a freeing genre and well-suited to my screwed up mindset.

5. I've never really seen the whole appeal behind CSI or Law & Order .

6. I was raised in a courthouse, quite literally, as my father was a prosecutor and would take me along with him to court. I used to draw on legal pads beneath the table in the prosecutor's room where my father would offer deals to defendants on child support cases. I still love being in the courthouse, and my love of the law knows no bounds. It's why I spend my off days, when not writing, working as a gofer at my father's office.

7. If my wife didn't control the checkbook I'd blow every penny we have. I like buying people gifts, and will loan almost anybody I know money if they need it. When at a bar, I often buy the next round. I like to have a good time, and too often that means taking my kids to movies when we can't afford it, or taking my wife to an antique store so she can buy something old and funky. I pull a lot of extra hours to make up for this, and am thinking about just handing my money over to the first bum on the street on paydays to make up for it.

I tag everyone. Go ahead. I'm tired and there's corned beef in the kitchen.

Peace,
J.C. Tabler