The weather is finally not so bitterly cold out here in Albany! It’s so nice!
Though I spent a large chunk of time yesterday curled up in my room with tea, reading Deathly Hallows (which I’m enjoying), Andy finally got me out of the apartment. I didn’t even need a coat, and I’m always cold! We walked down Fuller Road to Stuyvesant Plaza where we got dinner at Bruegger’s Bagels and sat outside to eat it. It felt and smelled like Boston right then. It was lovely. About the time we were finishing up, a couple of skateboarding teenagers took up the bench next to us. I mention this because it seems to be the result of Andy’s mysteriously magical Mohawk. I’ve definitely noticed people looking at him differently, but not with as much concern as I might have expected. Actually, though they certainly don’t give him any crap, people seem to be drawn to it. Take the teenagers, for example (And yes, I realized that by calling them “the teenagers” I sound unforgivably old): I could tell they were looking at him, measuring him up, but they just came over and sat down. They didn’t talk to us, but they didn’t seem to have any reason to sit down just there either. In fact, it seemed really random–you know, like the feeling you get on a bus or a train when the whole car is empty, but that random person just decides to sit right next to you? Like that. It was interesting, at least to me.
Then we walked back to campus and played some serious Halo 3 co-op. Good times, though I think I snapped at Andy a few times for what I felt like was telling me what to do (a.k.a. “bossy”), and what he thought was just “encouragement.” *rolls eyes* Hey, we can’t see eye-to-eye all the time. ^_^ It was good fun though.
We came back to my room in the hopes of catching the Reno 911 movie on HBO, only to discover that we only get HBO-Spanish, HBO2, HBO-family, and HBO-signature. How does that make sense at all? Forget HBO2, HBO-sig, HBO-fam, just plain old, boring, HBO? Ah well.
Today, I’ve got lots of work to do, so I’ll be off doing that, wishing I were out of school so at least my Sundays could be my own for my own chores/task/etc.
Writing:
Picked my “Star Markets” on Friday. By “Star Markets” I mean the magazines I would most like to get into, and therefore the magazines that I need to have a story into as often as possible. I’ve got a grand-total of three magazines and one contest, the latter of which is an excellent guide, because it takes both SF/F and anything in between, has a word count up to 17,000 words (about 34 single-spaced, 8.5″ x 11″ pages), and pays ridiculously well if you place, besides being one of the best ways to break into the SF/F industry by winning. I’ve entered once before, but now I’m going to try to sub one story a quarter (there are 4 contests a year, + one grand prize competition among first-placers). If nothing less, it’ll push me to come up with the best stories I can with a reasonable amount of work time between each deadline. Regardless of placing in the contest, I can then fix up those stories and sub them to my choice markets (all of which are out of my league, but precisely why I’m interested in them).
Well, maybe one of them isn’t–I got to the final editor’s desk on one with “The Tinselmaster’s Extended Ten-Day,” only to be cut in the last round. ;_; Still, I got a personal note from the editor himself, congratulating me for getting as far as I did because not many do, but informing me that unfortunately the story wasn’t quite good enough to make that final cut. At least I’m moving in the right direction! That’s further than I think I’ve ever gotten in a pro-paying magazine. *glows* Just gotta keep working away at it, and maybe someday I’ll make that final cut. ^_^
I have moments where I sound “unforgivably old” as well… and we were not the only ones who had off days yesterday… the cosmos would have been off. :)
hehe, funny, one of the only times I ever find myself snapping at Parker is when I think he’s telling me what to do, and he also thinks it’s just “encouragement.”