dream the impossible dream

2760 / 50000 words. 6% done!

Take that! I am now at a whopping 4 and a half pages!

Power was out for much of the day today, but is now returned. Saw a UTD stage version of "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," which was very beautifully designed and highly entertaining, but which had no ending and no emotional impact. Truly wonderful set, and a magnificent integration of video.

Finally sent copies of the film to Jonathan Lethem; it turns out he's been able to play PAL DVDs this whole time and there was no reason for the delay. I'm pretty embarrassed. I don't know whether he'll write back. I hope he likes it. There is part of me that thinks it could win an academy award, and another part of me which notices this is clearly insane.

bang bang bang bang

Days like this, I wish someone would shoot me in the head. I very happily knocked out a biblical horror story today because I was pretty sure there was a market for it, but when I reread what I'd written, I discovered, as usual:

1. It is flash fiction.
2. It is beyond question literature.

What does a girl have to do to sell out around here? This is actually worse than the time my quick money erotica story turned into a cyberpunk think piece.

Duotrope - you need this.

It occurs to me I haven't talked this up yet, and maybe you've heard of it before and maybe you haven't. Duotrope's Digest. If you're a writer of poetry or fiction of any length, this site is the place for you. It keeps track of all the markets, and it's searchable and free (although if you can donate a little money to help cover costs, they appreciate it). You can find the right market for basically anything. Aside from which, they keep stats on how fast magazines actually respond, and what percent of submissions are accepted. They track theme anthologies by date. They know when academic markets are on hiatus. And if you register with them (for free), you can track all of your submissions and it will tell you when you need to send a query letter if you still haven't heard back. Plus when you do this, it gives more data for the acceptance rate/response time stats. This site is like the holy grail for writers. Go there. Give them money if you can.