Where the pizza was, I cannot say, but in the fridge IT WAS NOT.

To the guys at work: Was it good? Did the cheese and the pepperonis and the crust and the sauce just go oh-so-well together? Did you think- Wow, I’m glad I found this pizza in the fridge tucked behind the banana and the kiwi in that brought-from-home ziplock bag!

You know who you are. I will find out. And then-! Ooooooh, you don’t wanna know.

^_^

ANYWAY, so it’s been a little while since I updated, not that I suspect many people noticed, but hey–like the subtitle of this blog says: no one’s forcing you to read this. Lots of stuff has been going on actually since I last posted. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it, but I’m now a full-time employee! YAY! I get benefits and a raise and PTO! I’ve never had PTO before! O.O

The last few weeks have seemed really insanely busy, too, which might explain my brief absence from the blogosphere. Andy and I finally topped off our housing furniture needs (dresser, bedside tables, bookshelf #2, desk, hampers)! YAY for a place that looks lived in and homey! We also got… A FICUS. Yes. You read that correctly. We have a tiny tree in our house now. It makes me happy. Now the challenge is just to keep it alive (I fear I lack my mother’s gift for gardening).

Besides that, I’ve basically just been trying to get to bed early enough to get some scarce reading-time in, which has actually been going really well. I finished House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (*love*), and am now moving on to The Custom of the Country. I’m finding this second one a little tougher to get into, but knowing how well she can evoke my emotions later on, I’ll put up with a little slowness in the beginning. I think I’ll also be reading Age of Innocence, and perhaps The Reef. If I’m really on a roll, I might go so far as to hit up Summer and some of her other short-story collections. But I have determined that after this, my author-focus is going to shift to Octavia Butler. Her SF blows my mind in the best of ways, and after reading Dawn I was determined to read as many of her other works as possible. 

But enough of that. 

Before I forget, let me mention that Apex Magazine just put out the delicious cyborg version of itself: a PDF reincarnation of the original APEX SF & HORROR DIGEST. These PDF versions, beginning with this month’s issue, will contain all the stories to be found online, but will have cover art, inside art, essays which won’t appear on the website, as well as other nifty tidbits! It’s well worth the $2 per issue (ONLY TWO BUCKS! O.O!!). I already bought my copy. How about you? 

In other news, I’ve got a bunch of pictures I’ll need to post of the furniture editions/other various things that I’ve been meaning to put up, but alas-! have not. I’m going to try to do better with visuals/videos/etc. because I think it’s pretty fun, and I might as well have fun! 

I’ve also been sporting with the idea of starting to post book reviews (mainly of science fiction, horror, and fantasy). I need to read a lot more than I have recently, but thanks to getting rid of cable TV, I actually do have more time (time I am now spending writing this blog entry). I did some book reviewing in college for the school newspaper, and actually enjoyed it quite a bit. If you have an opinion on this matter, I’d be interested to hear it.

Writing Stuff:

So! I’m into my fifth week of the MCY, and so far, I have one story finished, and I’m into the third week of the next. Andy and I discussed this last week, but we’ve determined that my natural writing length is between novelette and novella. I personally find something terribly romanic about novellas–I love the way they feel in the hand: the small, slender book. I’ve also read and enjoyed a number of novellas myself (Of Mice and Men, Heart of Darkness, War of the Worlds, Bartleby the Scrivner (yes-I actually liked it!), The Christmas Carol, Daisy Miller, Ethan Frome (See? It’s Wharton’s fault!), Maggie: Girl of the Streets (No, not ME, thanks a lot.), The Metamorphosis, The Stranger) as well as a number of others which weren’t my favorite. But anyway–I just love the little paperback books you can tuck into your back pocket or into a coat sleeve. The books thin enough to bend back on themselves (I know, Librarians! CRINGE!). I just find them enchanting. In fact, I think I’d rather have a shelf filled with my “little books” than loaded with several tomes. 

Granted, I realize that novellas are incredibly difficult to find markets for: they’re too long for most magazines, and they’re too short for most book publishers. But I don’t care! I love them, and they make me smile, so that is what I will write when I feel like it. I would love to compose a small collection of clockpunk novellas. “Mimicry” is comfortably a novelette already. “A small collection”-! Teehee. Gee, that sounds like something out of a Wharton novel. I imagine a number of her characters would enjoy a small collection of novellas. 

Oh, now I’m just getting carried away.

Current fantasy (semi-industrial–a slightly clockwork/steam/electric mix) “novella” or “novelette” if it turns out to be shorter than I think it will be, is only ~4,900 words long so far (even after two weeks, I KNOW), and although I didn’t get any writing done today because *someone* stole my pizza and I had to run out *again* after going to the bank to get something to eat, I at least took the time to figure out where I need to go next, and I’m plunging ahead! ^_^ 

(For those of you nit-pickers thinking, “hey, but I thought she was only going to work two weeks on any given story”–I say to you, poo! I’m borrowing weeks from the later half of the year, which I haven’t assigned to any particular projects as of yet. I want to finish this story properly before moving on to the next. So there!)