Home, home, home....

Busy, busy, busy....

But I'm getting things done and sites updated, and thinking about my outlines. So far today I've managed to write up a rejection for DT and update the new Forward Motion Bookstore. This is a spot for FM members to put up their work.

The work at DT has been interesting. Since I have most of the basic rules now set up, and the site mostly the way I want it, I'm able to concentrate on the work. Of the ten manuscripts I have received since the start of the month, four were rejected straight out as the wrong genre, wrong format, or short stories rather than novels. Two others have been rejected after a reading. That leaves me now with four more manuscripts and the promises of three more on the way.

I'm working on the Darkness Falls outline. It's made a strange little shift in direction that I didn't see coming until I suddenly stood on the precipice and wondered how I got there. It's a good shift, though. It gives me humans a reason for survival and a more definite foe. I'm glad I thought of this part, and it plays into the role of the alien Holy One and what he means to the society. It's a great theme to play with.

Have I mentioned that it's COLD here? We haven't gotten higher than 47f today and the wind chill has kept it down in the 30's all day long. Russ and I have been trying to guess if we'll have snow before Halloween or not. It's happened before.

If things go well tonight, Russ and I will go out and buy a new toner for the printer and some paper. I have two novels ready to go out -- two of them! -- and need to get them packaged up over the weekend. Then I have to prepare two more submissions to go out in November so that I don't mess up my 'at least two a month' goal that I've kept for several years. Since 1998, I think.

I am having a great time. Lots of stuff to do, and nothing much to complain about. You know, long ago I decided that I had control of my own life and I'm an adult. Things that happened in the past only matter if I let them matter. I absolutely will not let how my parents raised me dictate what I am today, and far less so the reactions of others whom I have had problems with. I'm in charge of who I am and what I do -- and my only restrictions are the ones that we all face like finances and time.

So today is good. I get to do all the things I want to do, and while they don't always work out well, I know that they're my choices, and I'm not going to blame my failures on family, friends, poor schooling, or anything else. My choices, my mistakes -- and my successes.

It's good to have control. (grin)