I have a little friend now when I write. A few weeks back we were given a stray kitten, and my daughter fell in love with it. Now we have two cats, our Maine Coon, Ambrose, and a little orange tabby kitten named "Capote" for his funny walk and high meow.
Capote, true to his name, has taken to sitting on my lap while I'm writing. He just...watches the screen. Then, when revising, he does what every writer wants o do. He falls asleep.
Right now he's doign it again. I don't know how to handle this...
Alright, update
"Poppa Bear" got its rejection from Cause and Effect , and "The Simple Account of Sergeant got a rejection from Allegory .
Other than that, the end of the month wrap up goes like this:
New Stories
There were only two this month, really:
"Rock A Bye Baby" subbed to The World is Dead
"No Deductible" subbed to Malpractice
An extension of "Linguistic Prescription" was done for Dead Jesters
Stories Still Out :
"Dead Air" at Aberrant Dreams
"Colburn Men" at McSweeney's Quarterly
"The Tribe of Harry" at The New Yorker
"Poppa Bear" at Underground Voices
"Linguistic Prescription" at both Postcards from Hell (original flash version) and Dead Jesters (special director's cut)
"Sacrifice of Man and Cloth" at Saint Anne's
"Big Jim Can Wait" and "Winter Wonderland" at Northern Haunts
"No Tell Motel" at OG's Speculative Fiction
"Fragile Obsession" at Ghost in the Machine
"Demon Whiskey" at Harvest Hill
"The Simple Account of Sergeant Shea" at Theaker's
"No Deductible" at Malpractice
and
"Rock A Bye Baby" at The World Is Dead
Let's hope I get some good responses in the next week or so, eh?
Peace,
J.C. Tabler
Showing posts with label cat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cat. Show all posts
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Back to the grindstone
Another week of work over. We'e doing alright, taking calls from people who need help with their health insurance. I've already informed my boss I'm coming after her job after I hit the floor, and next week we get trained in on the last of the basic systems we need to be cut loose from our training bonds. That'll stop us from transferring calls to folks who have the same skill set we have, and it'll stop us from being a general pain for the rest of the Specialists.
Finished up "Rock A Bye Baby" this morning, with only minor changes to it. I was amazed that, in one two hour sitting, I wrote what was basically a finished story. The response is that I'm now working on another Zombie piece because I want to have a backup for The World is Dead . I think it may work out alright, but we'll see.
Other than that, I've just read the amazing Miss Gardner's first draft of her story. I'll have to give it a few moer reads to give feedback, but I'm liking what I see already.
Still waiting on Harvest Hill , and I've decided that, someday, I want to write a novel. Not right now...don't have the time what with kids and all. I'll stick to short stories for a bit. Besides, as Ambrose Bierce (my cat's namesake) once said "A novel is a short story, padded." and "The covers of this book are too far apart".
Dinner party tonight, but before that, let me say one thing about a certain woman in Maine. Check the news, I'm too lazy to link, but this lady found an 8 foot PYTHON in her WASHING MACHINE!
...I'm never doing laundry again.
Peace,
J.C. Tabler
Finished up "Rock A Bye Baby" this morning, with only minor changes to it. I was amazed that, in one two hour sitting, I wrote what was basically a finished story. The response is that I'm now working on another Zombie piece because I want to have a backup for The World is Dead . I think it may work out alright, but we'll see.
Other than that, I've just read the amazing Miss Gardner's first draft of her story. I'll have to give it a few moer reads to give feedback, but I'm liking what I see already.
Still waiting on Harvest Hill , and I've decided that, someday, I want to write a novel. Not right now...don't have the time what with kids and all. I'll stick to short stories for a bit. Besides, as Ambrose Bierce (my cat's namesake) once said "A novel is a short story, padded." and "The covers of this book are too far apart".
Dinner party tonight, but before that, let me say one thing about a certain woman in Maine. Check the news, I'm too lazy to link, but this lady found an 8 foot PYTHON in her WASHING MACHINE!
...I'm never doing laundry again.
Peace,
J.C. Tabler
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Fedora Wearing Hero
Saw the new Indiana Jones movie tonight, coupled with Iron Man, at the only drive-in left in town. My sister, her husband, and my nephews came along with us, and much fun was had by all. After that, we went home...where we just now arrived. Sophie is conked on her bed, and I'm sitting at my makeshift work station typing this before her mother and I follow suit in our own room.
Started on the story I plan on submitting to The Black Garden today, got 1,200 words done on a first draft in a little under an hour. After solving my machinery dilemma it came pretty quick and easy thanks to the cat scratching me last night. If you've never seen a Maine Coon, they are huge cats with a good amount of claw spacing. On my knee are three deep, bloody furrows about an inch apart from where he fell off the couch during a movie last night and tried to get purchase on my bare leg. It started the engine and got me rolling on how to start the story and this little girl's obsession.
I have to say I'm having fun with it, which I'm calling the Grinder at this stage. Third person close narrative style, with the narration done as if they are thoughts of a young child. We get a lot of "and Mommy and Daddy and Papaw" type of sentences, but I think it adds to it right now. I'm going to shoot for having the first draft done by Sunday, then spend Memorial Day (after my trip to Zachary Taylor National Cemetery to visit some guys I used to know) revising prior to the family picnic. Everything goes according to schedule, I should have the final draft ready to go out by Tuesday evening...but a schedule is more of a suggestion with me.
Found a few amazingly creepy things today that I like the vibe to. Alice Cooper's song "Steven" has become a top one on my playlist...it gives me the damn chills. A few pictures and posters, and tomorrow we're heading to the flea market where I hope to find something else disturbing to decorate my desk. I'm a happy-go-lucky guy, but I like to set an atmosphere when I write to keep me on track.
My wife has already banned severed heads from the living room, so no worries there.
Speaking of her Pregnant Majesty, she's telling me it is time to stop typing and head to bed, so off I must go. I'll update with a word count and status on the Grinder tomorrow...hopefully.
Peace,
J.C. Tabler
Started on the story I plan on submitting to The Black Garden today, got 1,200 words done on a first draft in a little under an hour. After solving my machinery dilemma it came pretty quick and easy thanks to the cat scratching me last night. If you've never seen a Maine Coon, they are huge cats with a good amount of claw spacing. On my knee are three deep, bloody furrows about an inch apart from where he fell off the couch during a movie last night and tried to get purchase on my bare leg. It started the engine and got me rolling on how to start the story and this little girl's obsession.
I have to say I'm having fun with it, which I'm calling the Grinder at this stage. Third person close narrative style, with the narration done as if they are thoughts of a young child. We get a lot of "and Mommy and Daddy and Papaw" type of sentences, but I think it adds to it right now. I'm going to shoot for having the first draft done by Sunday, then spend Memorial Day (after my trip to Zachary Taylor National Cemetery to visit some guys I used to know) revising prior to the family picnic. Everything goes according to schedule, I should have the final draft ready to go out by Tuesday evening...but a schedule is more of a suggestion with me.
Found a few amazingly creepy things today that I like the vibe to. Alice Cooper's song "Steven" has become a top one on my playlist...it gives me the damn chills. A few pictures and posters, and tomorrow we're heading to the flea market where I hope to find something else disturbing to decorate my desk. I'm a happy-go-lucky guy, but I like to set an atmosphere when I write to keep me on track.
My wife has already banned severed heads from the living room, so no worries there.
Speaking of her Pregnant Majesty, she's telling me it is time to stop typing and head to bed, so off I must go. I'll update with a word count and status on the Grinder tomorrow...hopefully.
Peace,
J.C. Tabler
Friday, February 1, 2008
R.I.P. Zetti
Our cat died today. He was only a year old. He got sick early in the week, though in retrospect he was probably sick for two weeks. Last week it seemed as if he was trying to cough up a hairball. Other than that, he was active and normal. On Monday of this week he stopped eating his normal amount of food. On Wednesday he was only nibbling and having trouble breathing, so I called the 24 hour emergency vet here in town. The receptionist told me to bring him in Thursday morning, but I couldn't get off work. I asked if it would be okay to bring him in Friday after my class instead.
We were amazingly worried, but had no other option. Wednesday night we could have brought him in, Thursday we couldn't because if I didn't work we couldn't pay the rent. I took him in this afternoon at 2. He laid down in the carrier while we waited for 3 hours to see a vet. In that time, he passed away in his carrier while sleeping.
Des is heartbroken, and so am I. I can't help but blame myself over this. Had I taken him in last week, when we thought it was a hairball...or had I fought with the receptionist Wednesday night on the phone...or if I had not gone to work yesterday....or even if I had put up a fuss that he had to see a vet right away when I got to the office this afternoon...
Instead, our cat is wrapped in a blanket in my Jeep tonight, so we can bury him tomorrow on a corner of my parents' land.
I feel like this whole thing is my fault.
I'm going to bed.
Good night,
J.C. Tabler
We were amazingly worried, but had no other option. Wednesday night we could have brought him in, Thursday we couldn't because if I didn't work we couldn't pay the rent. I took him in this afternoon at 2. He laid down in the carrier while we waited for 3 hours to see a vet. In that time, he passed away in his carrier while sleeping.
Des is heartbroken, and so am I. I can't help but blame myself over this. Had I taken him in last week, when we thought it was a hairball...or had I fought with the receptionist Wednesday night on the phone...or if I had not gone to work yesterday....or even if I had put up a fuss that he had to see a vet right away when I got to the office this afternoon...
Instead, our cat is wrapped in a blanket in my Jeep tonight, so we can bury him tomorrow on a corner of my parents' land.
I feel like this whole thing is my fault.
I'm going to bed.
Good night,
J.C. Tabler
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Zombies on the Internet!
Well, I finished the edit on the Zombie story last night around one in the morning and crawled into bed to sleep like the dead (I know, bad pun) until around 7:30 this morning. After a few minutes of looking around Duotrope, I found a market. So, long story short, I've sent the zombie story out to get its first round of rejections before aiming my crosshairs a little lower and shooting for small game.
I should mention that I've got another story out and about, waiting on the rejection slip from that one to come over the internet postal service that is Gmail. This one is a cheap King Arthur piece that my mother loves, so I feel an obligation to try and sell it if at all possible. I wrote it for a class a while back, and did a few rewrites over the past couple months. It got sent off to garner a rejection from Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show in November, so we're still playing the waiting game. Of course, their standard response time is 90 or so days, so I've still got a month or so before I can print out the rejection, put it in a pile with the others, and start shopping that story around again.
This weekend I plan on sitting down to work on the ghost story. Hopefully everything will go according to plan, and I'll actually get some work done on it, at least enough to have a few pages typed up so I can gear up to really start working. At the same time I'm going to try and go for something that isn't spec. fict. for once. There's been a story rambling around in the back of my head about that ever popular topic, fathers and sons. I'm going to work on that on the days I get blocked on the ghost story.
On a slightly more personal note, our cat is now "the fearless hunter". We have a few mice in our apartment, not due to slovenly housekeeping because Desi is a fanatic about that sort of thing. No, our mice are the result of living in an old building in an older neighborhood, in the apartment that was occupied by a bachelor bartender for 7 years before we moved in and took a solid week to clean before we dared to bring anything inside. These mice apparently have a nest right outside our bedroom window, which has an old AC unit in it that Desi refuses to let me take out. She won't let me take it out of the window because I would have to put it in the bedroom closet, and she insists (I swear I'm not making this up) that doing so would take away all the space she needs for her shoes.
The result of this is that the mice are entering through a small gap between the window and the AC unit, where they artfully ignore the traps I have set along the wall on that side of the bedroom. The cat goes wild and wants in the room, and he has now taken out 3 of the rodents. The extremely expensive, rodent-like animal that my fiancee purchased now lives in mortal fear of the cat, staring out from the bars of his cage and begging us to protect him. The cat is amazingly proud of himself. I feel like an idiot for spending 15 dollars on mousetraps.
Well, that's all for now. I'll post a little on Friday or Saturday, whichever day I start on the ghost story.
Take'er Easy,
J.C. Tabler
I should mention that I've got another story out and about, waiting on the rejection slip from that one to come over the internet postal service that is Gmail. This one is a cheap King Arthur piece that my mother loves, so I feel an obligation to try and sell it if at all possible. I wrote it for a class a while back, and did a few rewrites over the past couple months. It got sent off to garner a rejection from Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show in November, so we're still playing the waiting game. Of course, their standard response time is 90 or so days, so I've still got a month or so before I can print out the rejection, put it in a pile with the others, and start shopping that story around again.
This weekend I plan on sitting down to work on the ghost story. Hopefully everything will go according to plan, and I'll actually get some work done on it, at least enough to have a few pages typed up so I can gear up to really start working. At the same time I'm going to try and go for something that isn't spec. fict. for once. There's been a story rambling around in the back of my head about that ever popular topic, fathers and sons. I'm going to work on that on the days I get blocked on the ghost story.
On a slightly more personal note, our cat is now "the fearless hunter". We have a few mice in our apartment, not due to slovenly housekeeping because Desi is a fanatic about that sort of thing. No, our mice are the result of living in an old building in an older neighborhood, in the apartment that was occupied by a bachelor bartender for 7 years before we moved in and took a solid week to clean before we dared to bring anything inside. These mice apparently have a nest right outside our bedroom window, which has an old AC unit in it that Desi refuses to let me take out. She won't let me take it out of the window because I would have to put it in the bedroom closet, and she insists (I swear I'm not making this up) that doing so would take away all the space she needs for her shoes.
The result of this is that the mice are entering through a small gap between the window and the AC unit, where they artfully ignore the traps I have set along the wall on that side of the bedroom. The cat goes wild and wants in the room, and he has now taken out 3 of the rodents. The extremely expensive, rodent-like animal that my fiancee purchased now lives in mortal fear of the cat, staring out from the bars of his cage and begging us to protect him. The cat is amazingly proud of himself. I feel like an idiot for spending 15 dollars on mousetraps.
Well, that's all for now. I'll post a little on Friday or Saturday, whichever day I start on the ghost story.
Take'er Easy,
J.C. Tabler
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