I mentioned this on Facebook a week or two ago, but missed updating here. I sold reprint rights to Evil Girl Media for my story “Birthing Fire.” I am extra pleased about this sale because apparently Story Star Publishing, the publisher that ran the short story contest where “Birthing Fire” won 2nd place, has closed up shop for over a year now, which means my beloved dragon origin story couldn’t be found online anymore.

Evil Girl Media (EGM) Shorts are, as their tagline goes, entertainingly evil. The editor Jennifer has collected an excellent array of stories, each with endings that leave you with a slight smirk on your face. It’s my new favorite small publisher.

No word yet on when it will appear, but I’ll update here as soon as I know.

I just checked the Galaxy’s Edge website, and apparently my story is already up! “Miss Darcy’s First Intergalactic Ballet Class” is now available for your reading pleasure over at Galaxy’s Edge.

“Miss Darcy” feels extra awesome because I don’t find too many reasons to include ballet in my writing, and this was the perfect opportunity. Some of the examples really happened in my teaching, just with (mostly) human children. It’s free to read for the next 60 days, along with the rest of the issue. There are some great stories by my fellow TOC mates, so check those out as well.

ArmadilloCon is coming up in about three weeks, so my schedule should be up soon. I think I’m going to be reading “Miss Darcy” at my reading, but I’ll decide for sure when it gets closer and I see how much time I’ll have.

I’m thrilled that “Miss Darcy’s First Intergalactic Ballet Class” has already found another home – before it was even published in Galaxy’s Edge! *muppet flail*

It will be appearing in the exciting reprint anthology Funny Science Fiction, edited by Alex Shvartsman.

The TOC already has some great names and stories appearing on it, including (so far) Mike Resnick, Shaenon Garrity, Lavie Tidhar, Oliver Buckram, Desmond Warzel, Tina Connolly, Anatoly Belilovsky, Ken Liu, and Lisa Tang Liu. Warzel’s “Wikihistory” still stands out as one of the funniest science fiction stories I’ve read, so I’m very pleased Alex liked my own story enough to include it in this collection.

Also, Alex is still looking for a few more funny stories for the anthology, so contact him if you know of one you want to include. He wants recent stories, though, from the last 5-10 years, I believe.

In other news, Camp Nano starts in 35 minutes. I set a high bar for myself this time, so the pressure will be on to hit to the word count. I’m not sure why accountability and guilt works as a writing motivator for me, but it was extremely helpful for keeping me from slacking off last November. (Though I’m positive that it wouldn’t have worked if I didn’t already have an outline to follow.) So it can’t be all that bad.

Best motivational speech ever? Possibly.

I don’t know why I get so stressed about this, but the idea of blogging (which I actually enjoy) when I could be writing on my WIP stresses me out to no end. And the longer I take to write, the sadder I am that I haven’t updated. I don’t want to update just to talk about my upcoming stories, I want to explore other topics! Like all the lovely baking experiments I’m always conducting, and how anyone finds time to work, write, raise a daughter, eat healthy, keep a rigorous workout regimen, and still engage in reading all the neat things that are coming out.  And then lovely publications like the Cats in Space anthology from Paper Golem come up and I find its been months since I updated anything. Of course I’m doing stuff on the writing front. It may never be as much as I’d like to do, but I’m managing as well as a working mother with a husband in school can be expected to.

So. Quick rundown:

CATS IN SPACE! I was so excited to be a part of this anthology. Back in August 2012 I had written a lovely little flash titled ‘Star Born, Star Bound’ about the REAL reason feral cats act the way they do, and not too long later, I had the chance to submit it to the Cats in Space anthology that Elektra Hammond was editing. This story once again proves that my stories that sell the easiest are the ones that were pure joy to write in the first place.

Next is ‘Miss Darcy’s First Intergalactic Ballet Class,’ coming in July/August’s issue of Galaxy’s Edge. (I’ll post a link when it becomes available) This story came about after a conversation with Bud Sparhawk at the Tor party during LoneStarCon 3 in 2013. We were talking about how I need to write what I know, and what I know is the crazy stuff that kids do during a ballet class. Alien children can’t be that far off.

The best part about these publications coming out so closely is that a certain cat appears in both stories. I’m excited to write more adventures about poor Felix in the future. His story cries out to be told.

I also returned last week from yet another MegZelCon, the best little con you’ve never heard of. Megan Grey and I had a fabulous time brainstorming and plotting my next project, currently titled Rising Storms. This epic fantasy takes place in a world where the primary transportation is birds, and the rumor is that all great (and not so great) weather can be attributed to storm bottlers. I’m really excited about this novel, and I’ve enjoyed the excitement of world building a secondary world for essentially the first time. Yeah, I’ve done world building for short stories here and there, but really world building from the ground up for an entire novel/series is a first.

So yes, MegZelCon was a success. We wrote, spent time with ‘special guests’ Nancy Fulda, Janci Patterson, and Gama Martinez, played some great games of Munchkin and Labyrinth, watched Netflix’s Daredevil (which has been pretty impressive so far), and in general got re-energized on our current projects. The Hospitality Suite (me) probably baked too many delicious cookies, but MegZelCon comes but once a year, right? Not anymore. We’re now meeting 2 to 3 times a year for these little writing retreats, so now I need to step up my ‘working out away from home’ game.

So that’s the big stuff. I’m still fighting the good fight, sending out my short stories and writing new epistolary flash fiction (more on that in another post). I’ll also start editing my middle grade fantasy novel ‘Rockbottom’ soon. I’m taking all the feedback from my writing group and am figuring out which changes to make, so I’ll be juggling that as well. It’s not like I don’t have stuff to be working on!

In the meantime, sleep is calling my name. Tomorrow is a full day of teaching and child-rearing and writing.

I’ve struggled to take time to write any posts lately, partly because I often feel I don’t have anything new to add to the blogging community at large, and because my brain always tells me that the few minutes I have to write a blog post could be the only few minutes in the day that I’d have to work on a story. Then, in the middle of today, the idea for this post came up, and it seemed like a worthy post:

Today I woke up, fed my daughter breakfast (successfully, thank you very much), and in between putting various shoes on my daughter and reading the board books she brought me, I prepared the Crockpot of Awesomeness for the Beef and Broccoli it was going to be cooking up all day. I considered taking her to the zoo, but ultimately rejected the idea when considering how close her naptime was. Pretty soon she got tired and I put her down for a nap. While she napped, I read a book, and when she woke up, we cuddled, she nursed, and we both kind of fell asleep for another hour.

Eventually, somewhere around 3, we left the house and ran errands, lost a shoe in Target, found it, and finally dropped off those disposable cameras that have been hanging around the house for the last 8 years. (Now I can see what’s been on them all these years.)

Merrit was home from class when we got home, and the evening was spent eating, watching a few shows on Netflix (a rare thing for our family), and of course more board books. She went to bed, and I finally finished the book I’d been reading, the first book I’ve had the luxury of finishing in months.

I played the role of mom (and wife) the whole day, and it was nice. I wasn’t a Pilates instructor, and I wasn’t a writer. These are things I love, things that I am proud of, but I made a conscious choice to be as in the moment with my daughter as I could, and I don’t regret that.

Most days since my daughter was born, I’ve waited for naptime and bedtime, biding my time before I can attempt to get a few minutes of writing in. Today I considered it, and rejected it in lieu of my book (it’s far easier to break away mentally from a book I’m reading and not feel cheated than a story I’m writing that I have now lost my train of thought). I’d like to say that I generally enjoy the time that she’s awake, and that I’m generally there, but her entire first year of life also consisted of being dragged around town for Pilates and dance classes, and you know what? The girl deserves a break.

Obviously I’m not going to stop writing or teaching Pilates. Those will continue, hopefully forever, for many reasons. However, I know that some days just need to be Mom days (or Mom and Pilates Teacher days). I hate not producing 2 novels a year and 8 short stories. I hate looking at my WIP that creep along, begging me to finish them so they can finally, FINALLY, be fully formed and run around Submission Land on 4 stout (but elegant and finely crafted) legs and find magazines that they can call home.

It also makes me a little sad inside to see my friends making amazing sale after sale while I can still count mine on one hand. But I feel much sadder at the idea of looking back, knowing I didn’t try to find a balance that errs on the side of being a parent. Because as much as I dream of and aspire to be a writer that makes an impact on a wide readership, none of that success would matter much if I didn’t first make a positive, lifelong impact on my daughter.