I had a terrific four-day holiday at the in-laws. I got to see my nieces and both my brothers, albeit on different days, and I caught up on sleep and did a little work on my academic writing sample for grad school, which is a spiffed up version of the article I wrote for Shadows of Saturn awhile back. I wrote the article in a hurry and really wanted to expand it and go into more detail and now I get the chance. It’s going s l o w l y but I think it’s turning out okay. It needed to roughly double in length in order to meet the criteria for the academic writing sample so I want to add quality, not just padding. Of course, when I start going off on Tolkien that means I could easily wander into a book-length ramble…

I’m putting together my Christmas/birthday wishlist and it’s startling how few wants I really have. I’m looking for a cool rune ring (preferably one that describes the sentiment of “cattle die, kinsmen die, one day you die yourself; the only thing that never dies is a man’s reputation” which is from the Norse Sayings of the High One) but this isn’t something you can easily pick up at Target. I’m also in the market for some comfy brown boots as I find myself growing out of wearing tennis shoes everywhere. The problem is that despite being an unrepentant slob I happen to be extremely picky when it comes to clothes. I happily sacrifice style for comfort and you’ll be hard pressed to find any article of clothing in my closet that’s not a basic solid color. Stripes and patterns are a definite no as I think they make me look like a clown.

My book list is amazingly short. I have a lot of stuff on deck but my primary interest right now is short fiction so I have a few subscriptions to magazines I generally buy off the shelf. I’m alarmingly well-equipped for outdoor excursions, save for some decent portage pads for the canoe. So there are a few computer gadgetry things, a few iPod accessories (the ‘pods been in the shop for the last two weeks and I’m getting antsy for it) and the obligatory latest release of the FIFA series by EA Sports but nothing to really get my heart racing. What am I missing?

I’m still listening to “Wolves of the Calla” by Stephen King and, for the most part, I’m interested. ‘Tis a bit long and I find myself going back and forth between being engrossed and bored, though neither lasts very long. It still seems to be “epic” more because King thinks the story deserves it rather than it growing naturally from the events. It feels positively pieced together as King thought through what might happen next. Still, I might pick up a hard copy somewhere if I can find it used on the cheap because some of his descriptions are top notch.

Yeah, I need to make a New Year’s resolution on this one to make a concerted effort to Get More Out In 2006. I only made 25 submissions in 2005 which doesn’t sound so bad (averaging one every-other week) but these are mostly resubmissions, meaning there’s almost no effort involved between the time you send out a story the third, fourth, or fifth time.

I also went through a phase of writing one-shot wonder stories that were more about me futzing with voice or whatever than being actual “real” stories with minor things like plot, or where stuff actually happens. So I do have full-fledged stories, I just need to finish them off and get them in circulation. Most of the ones I’ve been sending out are more experimental in nature and not as structured, and I get the feeling that they’re not strong enough in and of themselves to overpower the natural inclination of the slush reader to reject, Reject, REJECT!

So I need to finish the academic writing sample and my statement of purpose and get those suckers off my plate and then stick to a steady schedule of writing, revising, and submitting. It’s very easy to get lazy or to wait until you’ve heard back from a market before getting to work on something new, but that’s not the path to success. In order for this whole graduate school plan to really work (meaning so I can get a job when I get out) I need to publish regularly for the next bunch of years, so there’s no time like the present…