Well, after years of waffling about it, and after learning I had sold YET ANOTHER STORY this year (Woo! 2020 is turning out to be a bumper-crop year of sales!), I decided to go ahead and get the maggieslater.com domain and finally update the site a little bit. The image on the top of the old page was from waaaaaaay back when I lived in Oregon (Sheesh…from probably around 2008?), and the color scheme wasn’t doing it for me anymore, so it was time. Mostly, I’ve just simplified the theme a little, and headed more monochrome in color, but otherwise, the site’s the same and all the old posts are there.
What else? Ah! That story! I’m still technically waiting on the contract, so I probably shouldn’t say specifically where it’s gone, but I found out late last week that my snarky superhero story, “Any Day But Today…”, got picked up by a beloved market. I love this story. It’s so weird, but I find it hilarious, and it makes me smile. I hope you enjoy it, too! We could all use a little snarky humor these days, hmm? I’ll post more about that when I get the contract signed up, but until then *it’s a secret*.
But that sale also means I now have a cool but serious problem: I really, really need to get new fiction out! But most of my drafts and notes are packed away in the POD we got to move, so I can’t do too much until I get that out. I also–with short fiction–probably need some dedicated quiet time to focus on a project, or else I just need to start Pomodoro’ing the crap out of these things, because they’re not going to edit and polish themselves! Hmm… That’s probably a more realistic methodology…
Oh, yeah! And I did break my toe. Went to a local urgent care center last Friday (Boy, is that fun during a pandemic! I think my shoulders just about seized up from the anxiety of the waiting room.), and they took an X-ray and yup! Left pinky toe is definitely broken. Luckily, it’s a nice, clean break, no weird little spurs sticking out, nicely aligned, so it should heal up fine. Pain-wise, I’ve been really lucky, and it mostly only hurts at the end of the day if I’ve been up and about too much. No Couch-to-5k for me for a few weeks, though. Ordered myself a super cool orthopedic boot on Amazon the other day, and that’ll hopefully give me some options besides just being stuck in the one carpeted bedroom most of the day (easiest place with a 5mo you can’t hardly carry anywhere).
Also, Negative Space: An Anthology of Survival Horror is out in paperback! Woohoo! I’ve read the whole book for beta reading, and it’s a fun ride. Editor Aric Sundquist has done a really great job on Dark Peninsula Press’s first anthology. They’ve got submissions call up for their next book, so definitely check it out if you’ve got a dark Grindhouse-inspired tale with a female lead!
Maggie Slater 