So Jay Lake wrote a post in regards to rejections here.  This sent me searching through my records and believe it or not I rarely look at my rejection count or even compare the sales to rejections.

I'm pleased with what I found out.  I also found out my record keeping hasn't been too terrible.  Here's what I posted over at Jay's journal:

133 rejections total. Although this might get as high as 150 with missed recorded numbers.

Four pro sales.

31 rejections before first pro sale. 75 more rejections before second pro sale. 27 rejections since with third and fourth pro sales.

This is over eleven years.

**************************

Huge ups and downs, especially between first and second sale.  Looking at these numbers definitely make me feel like I've been progressing.  I don't have a huge inventory out circulating, which is fine by me as I also want to write novels.  I have this crazy dream where I can write novels and still write at least twelve short stories a year.  Still working on that one.

January of 2009 is nearly done and I haven't missed a day writing yet.  A day of writing means at least 500 words, which is a very easy goal.  And many days I get more than that.  Saturdays and Sundays are usually only 500 words.  I'm looking to knock it up a notch, though. 

I sent my first short story from Arizona two days before Christmas.  That felt good.  It's a way to establish roots here.

I'm planning on finishing that neglected novel of mine, which means getting it done in January, so that I can go onto the next novel.  And I'm not waiting until the new year to get started.

Should be an interesting year coming up what with living in a new city and unemployed for the both of us at the moment.  I'm hoping savings and tax refund will keep us afloat through March or April.  That's if things get really dire.  There's part time work, perhaps, as well as any story sales, which would be nice. 

Today, we're going to explore the new Phoenix Light Rail.  Grand Opening Today.  Other places in need of our exploration is the Star Trek Exhibit and the Phoenix Zoo.  And to our surpise we learned Arizona's first aquarium has opened in the East Valley.  An aquarium in the desert!  They even have penguins.  I sure hope they're protected against power outages.

One other thing worthy of note: the feeways of Phoenix, Arizona have to be some of the most beautiful freeways in the country.  They have landscaping, decorative gravel, planted trees and cacti, and designs and symbols carved in concrete and also created using that colorful gravel.

On the mom front she's driving again and for the most part has improved greatly since the head injury.  This was unexpected, but we'll take it. 

We still don't have Internet at my brother's place, so I try to update Livejournal at the library, which we go to often. 

Good wishes to all in the New Year!

My sympathies to all my old friends in the Pacific Northwest.  Snow, cold, and gray.  The commute to work would have been horrible if we had still been living there--I definitely wouldn't have been biking in it.

I hope you won't take this journal entry the wrong way.  Sure, I'm enjoying the sun, warm temperature, and all the light in Arizona.  I'm sure if we're still here in summer, I'll be cursing the heat.  Honestly, we picked the right winter for being in Arizona.  And I'll be thankful for it while it lasts.

Stay warm and dry y'all.

For the first time in my life I find myself with a cell phone and I'm thrilled at all the information ready in the palm of my hand.  I'm not a phone person which was why it took me so long to get a cell phone.  I'm just not a big talker on the phone.  But the cell phone offers so much more than talking.  There's texting.  I can check e-mail and have some internet access (some Internet stuff is just too wonky to do on the cell phone) and now I'm on Facebook and I'm enjoying it.

Getting a cell phone was well worth it.  We don't have Internet access at my brother's place yet, so the cell phone comes in handy for that.  Any other heavy-duty Internet stuff I need to do I go to the Mesa Community College library where I can get on the Internet for free.  Blogging might be infrequent for awhile but hopefully I can do an entry a week.  Facebook is a different experience when I can get to a computer.  So meanwhile, status updates will be done by phone.

This a great age to live in.  So much information and connection ready to tap into.

Finally obtained some Internet access (at a library) and here I am with a quick update. 

OryCon was a welcome break to packing.  Saying goodbye was a little more awkward than I had expected.  Didn't seem like we were leaving at all, seemed like there would be another Con around the corner and we'd be seeing these very same people.  There is a good chance that we will be seeing them at a Con, but we are now at the opposite end of the country.  Still missed out on seeing a lot of people at the convention, in particular some fellow Eugene residents.  Where the hell was everyone?  It was great to attend devonmonk 's book launch party.  We got a picture and autograph and everything!

The movers that loaded the piano and most of the boxes on Monday morning were great.  Seemed like we might be on the road by noon.  Alas, the last ten percent plus the cleaning took hours.  If frightens me to think of how long it would have been without some wonderful help from floatingtide .  She was great.  In fact, when we would shout at the ceiling "Whose idea was this anyway?" she said we could blame her only after she was gone and we were on the road.  Well, we never had the heart to blame the idea on her.

We didn't get on the road until four in the afternoon.  The apartment didn't get a thorough cleaning so we don't expect much back in the way of the deposit.  We drove until Reno, Nevada where we stayed with a friend and former Wordo, Brian Wade.  We got there around one or two in the morning.  It was great to visit with Brian for awhile and I would never regret that, even though we got a late start on Tuesday morning.

We drove through the Nevada desert on Tuesday, through obnoxious Las Vegas lit up in the night, through the Hoover Dam.  Security is tight at the Hoover Dam.  We had to open the back and be inspected before driving over the damn.  I'll always remember the line from the security officer as he points his flashing light at our stacks of boxes and junk (already informed that we were moving) and says, "So, what do you have in here?" 

We arrived in Phoenix at two am Wednesday morning.  X and I switched driving every two hours.  Sometimes a little longer.  This was a great way to do it.  We were able to get some sleep between shifts.  And to comfort the cats.

The cats, in fact, seemed to know that we had reached the end of the road at my brother's place in Chandler.  Back in Reno, when we let them out at Brian's place they had been freaked and cautious.  In Chandler, they relaxed.  They were a little more normal.  Some how they knew by our body language that we had arrived.  They no longer had to ride in a carrier in a cab of a truck.

We caught up on sleep over the next couple of days.  Felt some jet lag on Thanksgiving.  Mom is doing well and we're ready to help out in any way needed.

Today is Sunday.  Tomorrow is Monday.  X will be going to a temp agency tomorrow and I'll be writing in the morning.  It will be good to get back into some kind of routine.

More to report later!

The flu is nothing more than just a few sniffles and a raw throat in the evening.  Physically, I feel at 100%

I called in sick for Monday, but I felt better to work Tuesday and Wednesday.  On my last day I got my last paycheck upon leaving and I was pleased to find out that I had sick pay.  Yay!  I didn't lose the pay from those missed days of work after all.

Tomorrow is going to be a hell of day as we pack like crazy people getting ready for a cross country move.  Then it's off to OryCon early Saturday morning--by train.  The con will be a nice break before loading the U-haul on Monday.

Crazy times, folks.  Crazy times.

One annoying flu bug has bitten me during all this moving business.  First, a couple weeks ago, (and if this is the same bit of flu) I had weekend cold.  Just the sniffles and it went away by Monday.  Then this last Tuesday morning I wake up with a sore throat.  I go to work thinking I could deal with it.  Ha!  By the end of my shift, I was dragging.  Even with Daytime Theraflu at lunch time.  I was miserable that evening.

Wednesday I stayed home from work because I wanted to get well because I had a move coming up and Orycon, let alone making it through another week of work.  It felt good staying home, I felt much better.  Then Thursday I went to work.

Still felt a little run down, though.  Still took the Theraflu at lunch time.  I even went to work on Friday.

Here's where I think I went wrong, excusing for the moment that this could be a strong virus: I rode my bike back and forth to work on Thurday and Friday (Wednesday I had a ride).  That's 5.75 each way approximately.  It takes 30-35 minutes to bike that.  Now I hadn't thought about it at the time, but hindsight is 20/20.  My body needed energy to fight the virus and here I was taking it away by excercising, basically an hour each day.  I've become so used to biking, it never occured to me to question it when I was sick.  At least not until it was too late. 

So I'm at work on Friday.  I make it to lunch.  I don't have much of an appetite.  I drink my Theraflu.  And I don't feel like moving.  My lunch goes a little long, longer than what I'm comfortable doing.  I go out to work but it becomes clear that I'm dragging and that I'm of no use for the day.

I call my boss and tell her I need to go home.  Which is the best for everyone, really.  I have a feaver and I feel achy.  Now I can't get a ride home because nobody else is leaving and our car is with Ximena at her job.  I talk with her on the phone and we discussed a number of possiblities to get me home.  I had no money for the bus.  In the end, I decided to bike home, slowly, taking my time, drinking water and taking breaks.

It took me an hour to get home.  And boy was that bed comfortable when I got there.  I felt instantly better--my body no longer in the theroes of excertion.

Saturday I spent all day in bed even though I felt there's stuff that needed to be done.  Ximena assures me we're making great progress and have accomplised a lot already getting ready for this move.  She is so right.

Sunday is here and I feel better.  Still have the sore throat.  But I have more energy and we're packing and moving things.  I'm also taking breaks and drinking juice and sucking on lozenges. 

Tomorrow, I don't know about work.  If I do go in, I'm not biking.  I only work three days this week, my last day being Wednesday.  I'll probably drive the car or get a ride all three days.  I hate to miss anymore work days because we could really use the money for the move.  That may be so, but we also need my health.  I don't want to be sick during the move.  And I hope I haven't given this bug to Ximena.

Flu virus be gone!  I have stuff to do!

One great place to get free boxes for moving is the liquor store, or even the beer and wine section of Market of Choice.  Now if one comes into our apartment and glimpses the stacks of beer and liquor (and, yes, some wine) boxes, they'll believe we're throwing one hell of a party.

Alas, they'd be disappointed if they're party people.  Because what they'd find inside those boxes, would be books.

We've lightened our load here, getting rid of large pieces of furniture.  My desk is gone and now the desktop monitor sits on a kitchen chair and I type with the keyboard in my lap.  The apartment is chaos with everything scattered and out of place and boxes to walk around.  The cats are freaking out because we're changing their environment.

I"ve enjoyed this apartment we've been living in for the last four years.  I have little to complain about here.  But one thing I will not miss is the One-Butt-Kitchen.  The kitchen is so small that it's hard for two people to cook at the same time--if I bend over to get in the cupboard, I knock into Ximena, or vice-versa.  This kitchen doesn't have much counter space to speak of and no dishwasher, so the dirty dishes get piled in the sink.  It doesn't take long for the sink to get cluttered.  The two or three square feet of tile in the kitchen is known as the "Happy Tile" because it's a bright, 1970's red.  It almost screams GROOVY.

Truthfully, the Happy Tile is the best thing about our One-Butt-Kitchen.

Although if the tiled floor was any larger than the two or three square feet, it would be unbearable.

 

We just got cell phones.  First time ever for me having a cell phone.  We're finally here in the twenty-first century!  Welcome to the world of tomorrow!

Now, maybe, someday we won't have our Internet access by dial-up. :-)

Glacial?

My stint at jury duty didn't come to much.  When I went in and explained about a cross-country move coming up, I was told the available trials wouldn't last more than two or three days and that there were no murder trials.  Whew!

It was one day or one trial.  The woman that presented the orientation spoke with a pleasant southern accent.  She divided the 155 potential jurors into panels (or juries, I suppose) that she labeled as a different breed of dog.  I was a mutt!  Which, according to her, was a compliment--"My faithful companion, the mutt," she said.

Out of three potential trials and 155 potential jurors, only fifteen performed jury duty.  The first trial, someone (on the defense, I think) was a no show, so no trial there.  The second, 15 jurors were sent up and then sent back down again.  Five of those jurors were rejected, so five new ones had to be picked.  The third trial was postponed.

I was released shortly before noon.  The only other highlight was that I got to watch television coverage of the election of President Barack Obama.  I didn't vote for him because he's black.  I voted for him because I believe in him.  Nonetheless, I was getting teary-eyed at this historic event.

Then I went home and packed more boxes.

I really wanted to say that. :-)

. . . tomorrow.  Looks like my number has been called.  We'll see if I have to actually sit on a case.  With the move coming up, I hope not.  It'll be nice to have a day off of work.

And tomorrow we'll know who is the next president . . . :-)

Looks like we're moving to Arizona (Phoenix area) in a few weeks, right after Orycon.  That's the short version. 

It's like this: one day at the end of September my mom fainted outside and hit her head.  She's in her seventies and head injuries can be problematic for anyone of any age.  I talked to her on the phone not long after the accident and she sounds fine.  Since then, she's gone into occupational therapy and released.  She walks on her own power.  She talks fine.  There is a problem with memory and also her motivation is low.  It's hard to get her up and going to do anything--this could be part of the head injury or a depression thing, or probably a bit of both.  She won't be able to drive.

So she needs round the clock observation because of the memory problems and in case she faints again.  Now I have a brother down there and aunts and uncles.  My brother has been great dealing with all this and probably overwhelmed.  There's some more big stuff down the road.  The doctors have suggested assisted living care, so that means we'll need to move our mom out of her apartment eventually.  Help would be greatly appreciated to everyone down there because it's hard to have someone there with mom all hours of the day (especially during the day working hours).  My brother stays at mom's every night.

One option for me and Ximena was one or both of us fly down there and stay a few weeks, but then we'd have to come back for our jobs.  The other option was to bite the bullet and start our move early, meaning a move to the Twin Cities via Arizona.  We're moving with as little as possible (but we'll still need an U-haul or some such vehicle) and we can stay at my brother's apartment.  We won't have to pay rent, so our expenses will be low.  We'll stay until March.  We'll get part time jobs at the very least.  We'll want to save up some money for the move to the  Twin Cities.  I thought the second option would be best since my brother (and mom) will need help beyond a simple few weeks.

As long as our expenses are low I think this should work.  All the moving makes it seem like it would be more expensive but with flying back and forth and missed work time and an Oregon apartment needing a rent payment, well, it doesn't seem all that expensive.  I also have an added problem of being summoned for jury duty on November 5.  Oh boy.

It's been a long week as we agonized over this decision.  When we finally made a decision I felt the weight off my shoulders.  Now we're doing something and we have a plan.

We were going to cancel out of Orycon, but this is our last and since we're moving in three weeks there's not a lot of time to see everyone before we go.  We'll go to Orycon, move on the Monday afterwards, be in Arizona the day before Thanksgiving.

As for OryCon, we'll be getting up there early Saturday morning so we'll have just two days of the con.  Hope to see you there!

It will be a busy few weeks with packing and getting rid of the non-essentials.  It's all scary and exciting at the same time, really.  We really want to help my brother out.  In the back of mind I keep thinking my mom is fine and what is wrong with her are things I have no power to fix.  That may sound cold and blunt.  Or I'm too far away from the situation.  What we do know is that we can help my brother out.  That at least I can do.

The idea of moving away from Eugene has been an idea that's been batted around between me Ximena for about a year, but for at least the last six months we've been seriously looking at the Twin Cities as place to move.  X has a interest in prosthetic technology and there's very few schools in the country that offer a program in prosthetics.  One of those places is Century College in White Bear Lake, a suburb of Saint Paul.

At this point we've been digging into job and apartment hunting in the TC.  Yeah, unemployment seems high everywhere and the economy sucks, but a move like this would be tough no matter what the state of the economy.

When I moved from Minnesota to Eugene back in '93 I had no safety net, very few belongings, no job, no place to stay except for a motel room. Today things are a little more complicated and I'm inclined to plan this move a little more carefully.

Anyway, we hope to move in March or April of this upcoming year.  My thinking is since I've worked in groundskeeping and on a golf course for thirteen years, my best bet for employment is getting work with a golf course in the Twin Cities.  They'd be hiring around April.  This would be seasonal, of course, which is fine, since I really would like to do something else for a paycheck.  When winter comes around, I'll look for different work.  Ximena is doing temp work in Eugene right now and she's been looking for work in the TC by long distance and that's difficult to do.

Then there's my mom in Arizona.  She's doing much better since the accident but there's talk of moving her to assisted living.  Right now, my brother and other relatives are taking shifts watching her and they're having problems finding someone to watch mom during the day because they have dayjobs.  We would like to help out and they need help for the next month or two.  What might happen is either just Ximena or both of us could end up going to Arizona to help out.  There's a lot of things to consider at this point.  And I don't think this would affect the move, but it certainly might affect OryCon.

An interesting and uncertain time.  :-)

Getting back on track about the Twin Cities: there's a large writing community that we've already started touching base with.  I'm reading journals of some of those writers.  In other words, TC has that going towards its favor.  The Twin Cities is also a big and growing biking city, with bike routes, paths, trails, and lanes.  This is good as well since I've been communting by bike here for the last seven months.  And believe it or not, people do bike in the winter there.  Speaking of winter, I'm a native Minnesotan, so I know what to expect.  Ximena has spent winters in Boston for college, so she knows winter, too.

I'll report more here as our plans progress.

I received my OryCon schedule.  Generally I prefer a light panel schedule, however this time our weekend schedule is short.  I'm working until 4pm Friday and then we're planning on taking the train up to Portland early early Saturday morning (5:30), then leaving Sunday afternoon or evening. 

Yep, we're doing the train again (just as we did for JayCon back in June).  Granted the gas prices are lower but our car is getting old and approaching 200, 000 miles (it's a Toyota Tercel).  Plus if we take the train we don't have to pay for hotel parking and the Trimet ride from the Amtrak station to the hotel is free because it's in the fareless zone.  Not to mention saving one night's hotel stay!  This should work out just fine.

Sat Nov 22 1:30:pm	Sat Nov 22 2:00:pm	Readings with Rob Vagle
Salem		Reading of the works of Rob Vagle by Rob Vagle
Rob Vagle

Sat Nov 22 2:00:pm	Sat Nov 22 3:00:pm	Are Writers, Artists, etc., really crazy?
Mt. Hood		It has been said that writers, artists, filkers, and their ilk are successful because they are wired differently. There are those who will use the word crazy to describe this. Is this a fair assessment? Accomplished writers and artists assess whether this is true (at least from their point of view)
Steven Barnes Steve Perry Joan Gaustad Rob Vagle Harry Turtledove Jeff Fennel

Sun Nov 23 2:00:pm	Sun Nov 23 3:00:pm	Will blogs replace the conventional media?
Medford
Rob Vagle Ann Wilkes Alan Olsen

I'm still on a short story reading kick.  In fact, I checked out the Del Rey Book of Science Fiction & Fantasy from the library.  I still would like my own copy, though.  But you just can't beat the convenience of the library.

The cold I had in the last entry only last a weekend.

Then during a week of threatening national economic collapse I got a phone call during the day job that my mom had fallen (a head injury) and was in the hospital.  This took my mind of the economy.  Life, after all, carries on.

Anyway, my mom lives in Arizona, she's in her mid-seventies and I have a brother down there along with uncles and an aunt (my mom's brothers and sister) and cousins.  There's only a few details as to what happened, but heat and exertion seem to be part of the problem that caused her to pass out, thus the head injury. 

This can't be good, considering her age.  I've talked to my brother a couple of times and she's improving but will need a couple of weeks in neuro-therapy.  I actually got to talk to my mom on the phone yesterday and she sounded good.  She still doesn't know why she's in the hospital.  There's still some blood on the brain that needs to be reabsorbed. 

This entry is really just a scatter shot of details.  There's nothing I can do being in Oregon while she's in Arizona.  And there is a feeling of helplessness here.  At least there's family down there.  It's hard to say when I see her next whether she'll be in her same home or in someplace with managed care.   

So the weekend's here and I have a cold.  At least it hasn't knocked me on my ass. 

I'm getting some writing done and sending some stories.  Seems like that short story workshop has sent me on a short story reading kick.  Today I've read two enjoyable short stories: "Twilight Time" by Lewis Shiner (story originally appeared in a '84 issue of Asimov's) and  "The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among The Dogs of North Park After The Change" by Kij Johnson (The Coyote Road Trickster Tales edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling).  The latter (and the collection itself) is on this year's World Fantasy Award ballot and a fabulous story.  I say this as a writer AND a dog lover. 

I also feel the need to go out and buy The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy. The short story reading kick is like a drug, I tell you!  Alas, I better get back to work on my own stories.  Perhaps later I'll go out.

Over the weekend I was in Lincoln City for a short story workshop with Dean Wesley Smith, Kris Kathryn Rusch, and Asimov's editor Shelia Williams.  Highlights:

• Dean and Kris are currently NOT editing anything, so in this workshop forum Dean played editor as if he were still editing for Pulphouse and Kris played editor as if she were still editing for F&SF.  The workshop writers focused on craft and tried to write stories that begged the editors to read them all the way through.
• I came through with flying colors in regards to the editors.  No sales, but my stories were well received.  Suddenly I'm able to ground the reader and compel them to read.
• My overnight story came to sixteen hundred words.  It was easy once I settled on what I was going to do.  Friday afternoon I couldn't get my fingers moving on a story.  That evening I slept and woke at 4am Saturday to write my story before breakfast at 9am.   I like this story more than I thought I would--first hating the idea is probably why I had a slow start.
• If Pulphouse were still around, my story "The Forgiving Execution" would have a home.  "The Forgiving Execution" is too creepy for Asimov's. 
• Far Future science-fiction stories scare me because there's so many possiblities.  I need to finish my far future story just to be rid of that fear.  Kris Rusch said at Clarion her fellow workshoppers were telling her she wasn't a science-fiction writer.  Look at her now.  She told us writing science-fiction isn't hard at all.  This was good to hear.
• I feel unscathed by the workshop experience.  And a little bit guilty.  Why?  Because other writers had gotten rejections and red lines on their manuscript where editors would stop.  The editors were tough.  Usually I'm getting rejected.  Usually my stories are getting ripped apart.  Not this time.  And if feels weird.  As if I had just climbed over a mountain.  What next?
• The next mountain, of course.  I don't believe I'm perfect.  I know I sometimes don't ground the reader, sometimes my writing lacks the right sensory detail, sometimes I don't have conflict in my stories.  There's always craft to work on. 
• Met jeffsoesbe for the first time.  He wore some great tie-dye on Sunday.  Wish I had brought mine.  There were a lot unfamiliar faces at this workshop so I found myself being quiet and watchful in most social interactions.  I manged to get to know some of them, though, like Melissa Yuan-Innes.  Other familiar LJ faces would be erdnase2000 and maryrobinette.  Plus, kenscholes and jens_fire stopped by to say hello.   bjcooper did great job drawing me out at breakfast on Sunday--I like her and I've seen her numerous times at conventions and workshops, yet sometimes I'm still too quiet.
• The Anchor Inn in Lincoln City is a great place for writing workshops and Kip, the owner, cooked us some great meals.

So I just read eight stories for the short story workshop next weekend.  All I have is eight more to go for a grand total of forty-two stories.  Someone added up the pages and you know how many pages we're reading?  1022 manuscript pages of short fiction!  Damn, I'm glad we don't have to critique.  We're just reading so we know what the editors are talking about during the workshop.

Many great stories in this bunch.  I'm buzzing with anticipation and can't wait to run through the workshop gauntlet.  I'll be writing a new story during that weekend--I'm most excited about that.

Focusing on short fiction recently has been great.  I'm forcing myself to finish stories and accomplishing that.  Also, finding conflict in my stories is coming easier.

I'll update more this week before the workshop (starts Thursday evening) and after the workshop I'm back to the novel.  Plus, I'll write some journal entries with a little more substance.  Or at least, hopefully, a little more entertaining.  :-)