Reading around…

Reading Justine Larbalestier’s post, “How I finished my first novel” and a couple of sentences hit home.

Because back then I had no idea whether I could finish a novel. And not knowing if that was possible made finishing really really difficult.

This is me, basically right now, approaching 40,000 words.

I’m… scared. I’m reaching SFWA’s technical edge of crossover to true novel length work. And it’s not like I’ve not hit 40k words on something before.

So why the fear?

Is it because, this time, I’m facing down the prospect of actually going from beginning, to middle, and end? Of finishing something, having something complete, rather than have something written of that length?

Or maybe it’s just hitting home now, feeling real?

Not sure. But I clocked in about 4k words on a new short before I realized that if I was plugging away on the Work in Progress (can’t call it a novel, or I’ll freak) I’d be 1/2 way to navigating the 10k needed to reach 40k.

So I sat myself down and did 652 words or so last night.

If I keep this up, I’ll like get 10k by the 31st Dec.  But.

I’m not a words-every-day kind of person. Never have been.

We’ll see. We’ll see if finishing a novel’s a possibility for me.

There’s days when my illness makes this feel like an impossible task with no end in sight.

But others have done it. I’ve been to their book launches this year.

Here we go.

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Announcement reposting

From redforgender.tumblr.com:-

Caribbean Cyberfeminisms

I’m working on a research project on Caribbean Cyberfeminisms and I’m looking for Caribbean feminist tumblrs & blogs from across the multi-lingual Caribbean and the diaspora.

I’ve blogged about the top 10 Caribbean feminist blog posts and Digital Feminist Activism in a Post-Feminist Age. Now I’m seeking to complete a much larger research project.

Thanks for collaborating & please re-blog.

I can be reached on tumblr or at redforgender [at] gmail [dot] com

Caribbean Cyberfeminisms

I’m working on a research project on Caribbean Cyberfeminisms and I’m looking for Caribbean feminist tumblrs & blogs from across the multi-lingual Caribbean and the diaspora.

I’ve blogged about the top 10 Caribbean feminist blog posts and Digital Feminist Activism in a Post-Feminist Age. Now I’m seeking to complete a much larger research project.

Thanks for collaborating & please re-blog.

I can be reached on tumblr or at redforgender [at] gmail [dot] com

– See more at: http://redforgender.tumblr.com/post/65233149502/caribbean-cyberfeminisms#sthash.S63sVmSC.dpuf

So this is the gig I’m doin’…

So I mentioned that once I felt confident, and been doing it consistently for a while, I’ll announce what I’m doing and where?

Well here it is.

I’m the Associate Editor for Abyss & Apex.

One of the first orders of business:- Our award-winning, nominated, and honourably mentioned stories are now FULLY listed on our Announcements page. There’s a lot. (http://www.abyssapexzine.com/announcements)

These include stories by Barth Anderson, Aliette de Bodard, Paul Di Filippo, Caren Gussoff, Howard V. Hendrix, Nora K. Jemisin, Jay Lake, Lisa Mantchev, Mary-Ann Mohanraj, Ruth Nestvold, one of my favourites-Tony Pi’s Aurora-nominated “Metamorphoses in Amber”-, Cat Rambo, Bud Sparhawk, Michael Swanwick, Rachel Swirsky, Lavie Tidhar, and Genevieve Valentine.

Apparently, after Wendykins took over, she created a monster and became overwhelmed with submissions. I’m helping her swim. She had to cut down the submissions period to a week from a month, because we went from 200 pieces of slush to read, to over 1500.

Yeah.

Wendy goes into some detail on this over at Abyss & Apex’s blog.

At this point we’ve got a good rep, and I’m here to help ensure that we keep it that way, and improve on said rep.

So bring it.

Your submissions, I mean.