It occured to me that there have been some publication changes recently which I’ve never blogged about. I’m going to do that now, and offer up some of my thoughts about them at the same time.

One relatively big change around here is that my contract with Eternal Press recently expired and we parted company. The split was amicable and the end result is that all the rights to Sister Margaret have reverted back to me. I’m hoping, one day, to be able to put together an Aphanasian stories collection, and Sister Margaret will definitely have a place in it. In the meantime you can now read it, completely free, here. While it was originally published by Wild Child Publishing I felt that the first issue of Niteblade needed a bit more fantasy and reprinted it there. Of course once I included Sister Margaret I suddenly got a bunch of fantasy submissions, but whatcha gonna do?

I took it down while it was contracted to Eternal Press, but now I’m allowed to share it with you for free again

Also, you may remember that my zombie munchkin story “…Oh My!” was one of the runner-ups in the Dark Moon Books ZOMBIES! anthology contest. I was estatic. They’ve recently made some changes though that meant that anthology was canceled. The editor offered the story a spot in their upcoming magazine (The Dark Moon Digest), but I passed. Nothing against the editor or the magazine, which I will consider as a market for future work, I just didn’t think the magazine was where I wanted the story to go.

Originally I thought my hesitation was due to the fact I really wanted it to go in an anthology rather than a magazine, but I’ve since submitted it to a different magazine (*fingers crossed*). Truth is, something about it going into the Dark Moon Digest just didn’t feel right. I’ve ignored that feeling in the past when it came to my writing and I always regret it. This time I listened. It meant giving up a ‘sure thing’ and having to look for a new home for that story, but still, I’m glad I listened.

I’ve not always been very good at listening to that little voice inside me, but I’m getting better. You know why? Because I realised that I’ve never regretted it when I’ve listened, but I sure have when I’ve ignored it. How about you?

So far today has been a tough day energy-wise.

Firstly, it’s overcast and rather blah out there. My mood is strongly connected to the weather, more so in recent years than in the past. It’s really making me dreary and ass-draggy. For obvious reasons, that’s not my favorite.

It’s also my volunteer day in a grade two classroom. Usually I find that time energizing, positive and fun, but sometimes when you see the issues, huge issues, that these kids are having to deal with it’s depressing. They are seven years old for goodness sake, they shouldn’t need to worry about these sorts of things. I, obviously, can’t go into details, but I’m sure you can all use your imaginations. Teachers — I commend you. Truly. For some kids school is the only safe or stable place they have. It’s -so- important!

Sadly, many of the kids who struggle the most with reading are the ones who would benefit most from being able to do it — to use it as a sort of escape. That really shows me that the little bit of time I spend every week with them is important, seeing them progress is usually very rewarding… Today was hard though.

Plus, some people (of the grown-up variety) I care about are going through some tough times and having to make difficult decisions today. I’m keeping them in my thoughts too. They’ve got it harder than I, no question at all, but they are borrowing a little bit of my energy too (even if they don’t know it).

It might sound as though I’m feeling sorry for myself, and I’m not. I’m just pretty low energy/motivation. As much as I adore zombies on somedays I feel like I belong more amung their number than that of the living. Today is one of those days.

Speaking of zombies, I’m not all gloom and doom today despite how it may seem. One of my zombie poems, White Noise, was published at Everyday Weirdness today. Yay! I love this poem, it’s one of my favorites in my slowly-increasing zombie collection. I hope you’ll read it and like it too.

In the midst of all my novella title angsty I totally forgot to mention that I sold a zombie poem to Illumen yesterday. “Prank Call?” is going to be in their Spring 2011 issue. Yay!

Also, a while back a group of us from NaNoLJers worked together on a group poetry project. The result is the poem “Alone“, which we sold to Sorcerous Signals. That poem went live at the beginning of the month. For anyone who reads Niteblade the style of the artwork accompanying our poem may look familliar — it was done by Marge Simon. I love her work so it was an honor to have her illustrate mine (again ).

One of the best parts about writing “Alone” and getting it published is that it is the first paid publishing credit of a couple of my fellow poets. It made me happy to be involved in their first publication. Very happy.

If you write what was your first publication?

Mine was a short poem, a rictameter, in a little magazine called ‘The Storyteller’. They didn’t pay anything, in fact the publication cost me money because my ego demanded I buy a copy of the magazine*. The poem was called ‘Snowflakes’ and was sweet little piece about walking in the snow. The thing is it wasn’t until after it was published that I realised the syllable count on the poem was wrong. Oops.

*Note to self: This is a good topic for a blog entry in the future.

Today is the official release day for Shades of Green. I’m a weird mixture of feelings including nervous, excited and disbelieving. Plus I’m stressy and worried about non-book related stuff.

I’m nervous and excited for sort of obvious reasons. One of my stories is being shared with the world and it’s my first physical book. How could that not inspire nerves and excitement?

It’s still not completely real to me yet, I think that will change once my author’s copies reach me (stupid post taking for freaking ever to get from the US to me). So yes…it’s a bit unreal still, but hopefully soon that will change. *crosses fingers*

In a happy coincidence green is my daughter’s favorite color and last night she and I spent some time dyeing her hair green (not all of it…just much of it). Unfortunately the dye didn’t take as well as we had hoped and this morning she has lime green streaks instead of dark green. She seems happy with it, but I still get to stress a little bit (it’s what I do). I hope she doesn’t get teased. As we were doing her hair we were talking about how it’s funny my book is called Shades of Green and she was going to have shades of green in her hair for its launch day. That was nice.

Oh, another source of stress? My husband is sick.

So it’s a weird day already…and a weird blog entry. I just thought I’d give a little peek inside my brain today. I hope I didn’t bore you.

I do have good book-related news to share too

Firstly, thank you to everyone who entered the draw to win a copy of Shades of Green. You all really made me smile. Thank you. Alas, I could only pick one winner and the random number generator says that person is Alexa. Congratulations Alexa, you win a copy of Shades of Green. Email me (rhonda@jofigure.com) with your snail mail address please

Secondly, the first review of Shades of Green is in, and I’m happy to say it’s a positive one Amber Stults has a review up in which she says:

The ending is a bit of a surprise but it’s what sets the story apart from similar tales.  It ties things up neatly in a way that isn’t obvious on a first reading.  If you want to lose yourself in the story of the last Swamp Elf for an hour or two this is the novelette to pick up.

You can read the whole review here. If you pop over to her website tomorrow as well she will have an interview with me. It’s less scattered than this blog entry. Honest.

Now I’m going to go be unfocused some more in a less public location. :O)

I’ve a couple new stories out today, which is a lovely way to start the year. Firstly is my six-word story that is in It All Changed in an Instant: More Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure which has an ironically long title I get paid with a contributor’s copy for that, which has a value of $8.10 US. That means I got paid an equivalent to $1.35 a word. I’m pretty sure that’s my highest per word payout so far. Pretty snazzy.

I also have a short story at Flashes in the Dark today. You can read Dive just by following that link, and Flashes in the Dark is one of those cool webzines that will let you leave a comment if you feel like it. A little bit about this story, but cut because here there be spoilers:

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