Yes! I am immensely proud to announce that I was just congratulated on my second Honorable Mention in THE WRITERS OF THE FUTURE Contest. That's three quarters entered, two honorable mentions. Yeah, I'm stoked! Even more so because they said I have talent. Oh baby! It's all up from here.

(Thanks and appreciation go out to all INK members for their critiques, Lake & Scholes for unknowingly influencing me to explore Speculative Fiction writing, and to The Husband for inspiring the original short story.)

For as much as I complained a couple of days ago about stuffing my half-finished short story (YAWT - Yet Another Working Title) into the Dead Story file, I can't keep myself from thinking about how I might be able to fix it. I love it when my brain works like this because just as often, it doesn't.

In other news, my entry in the Writers of the Future contest - 2nd quarter, came back. While I didn't place anything with them, rejection doesn't really bother me (I learned to deal with it a lot growing up) and so, I rewarded myself by sending the story right back out to another market, to a publication that had good things to say to me last year in a personalized rejection on what I consider now a lesser story. Get back in that saddle, get back on that horse. A-yup, I live for this kind of thing. And while I was at it, I sent WotF an entry for their 3rd quarter contest. That makes six of my stories out there looking for homes, or hopefully at the very least, a word or two of guidance.

Next month, The Car Novel bubbles to the surface again. With the first half edited and the second half's outline nearly complete, I've got no reason to come up short on finishing it this year. Time to dig out my aloha shirts and my favorite Vans, dust off my car, squirt some Uber-Gloss on it, and get the oil changed (finally), and dive back into Cecil, Floyd, and Scratchy's world.

Now if only the weather outside would cooperate. Still having cold, wet, windy late February/early March-like days. Still experiencing near-freezing overnight temperatures. STILL have those geraniums camping out in the garage (under grow lights thank goodness).

Sunday afternoon came and oddly enough, I found myself volunteering to dog-sit the cutest Pug you'd ever want to meet. Champ is Steve Libbey and his girlfriend's dog who needed a wee bit of attention right before Mr. Libbey was to speak on a panel. I walked in on the situation and offered to help. What was I just saying over on Kami's journal about me missing dogs a couple of weeks ago?

Champ was a champ, a professional all the way. We went outside for a smidgen of business-doings then over to our hotel room for a cool drink of water and a little down time to give his poor tired legs a rest, then it was back for a walk through the convention garnering lots of ooh-ing, ahh-ing and petting along the way (I had been warned he was a real ladies man) and back up to Mr. Libbey's panel to wait until his mom arrived to take over. He crawled into my lap and there we sat, on the floor, talking to Jim Fiscus for almost a half an hour.

Gosh, he was sweet. Champ was every bit as much so too.

An hour later, Kami and I ran into Dragon Dronet whom we had met at a pre-RadCon dinner Thursday evening and we talked briefly about something that had happened Saturday evening. Mr. Dronet remembered something I'd mentioned at the dinner and pulled something from his luggage bag.

I had practically drooled over one of the props he passed around at the Thursday night dinner. No, it wasn't one of the many cool movie masks or helmets he brought with him. It was a simple pink, plastic bar of soap that just happened to have the words "Fight Club" carved into it. And then he autographed it and gave it to me.

As if I hadn't already been walking on air all weekend from my Writers of the Future Honorable Mention placement, I heard a fascinating man speak, watched him fight, talked to him and received something for my ever-growing Chuck Palahniuk collection! Could things get any better? Oh yeah, Kami got a picture of him and I and the bar of soap but we'll have to wait to see how that came out. I hope hers with him turned out too!

It's now Monday evening and I'm home. Steve slaved all weekend cleaning the house and doing personal projects he set out to accomplish. He says he understands a little better now what it takes to run the house by himself (this was the longest we'd been apart since...ever) and I'm learning that maybe leaving him and the house very well-stocked but without a car for four and a half days might not be so smart in the future. He found himself looking for healthy meal home deliveries online -- something that Does.Not.Exist in Vancouver -- because he didn't have a car to drive and wanted something different, something he didn't have to prepare. I'm guessing he didn't remember those talks we had over the winter about calling for a taxi should anything come up while I'd be out of town.

Well, laundry is calling me again and regretfully, the glow of RadCon is fading. It was a great convention, one that will always hold a special place in my heart because it was where I heard that I had received an Honorable Mention from the 2008 first quarter Writers of the Future contest and where I met so many cool people I hope to spend years running into again and again. Thanks RadCon Bob and thanks to everyone who made RadCon great for this first timer.

RadCon Day One.

Met lots of people.
Discovered my conversational skills are still reasonably good.
Got phone call via Kami's cell that I won Honorable Mention at Writers of the Future's First Quarter contest.
Did happy dance in hotel room while on phone with Writers of the Future.
Beamed, actually BEAMED the rest of the evening.

Yeah, things are that good here.

Jay Lake's visit here Saturday evening to speak to the INK writer's group went beautifully. Photos here.

I'm still a little astonished something didn't go awry, such as having an area power outage or our alarm going off unexpectedly or any number of other things that could have happened. I don't even think I said anything that might have come off wrong, or too wrong (in the event I did anyway). I think all the electronics failures we've gone through over the last few months have spooked me a bit. I was happy to see that every thing behaved well.

Today is all about getting the butt back into the chair to write. I've got three short stories to revise and a new one half written. That one's been eating at my brain, screaming to be written every bit as loudly as The Car Novel is screaming to be finished. Hold on a little longer, little Car Novel. Your time will come.

One of the story revisions will be sent to the Writers of the Future contest before December 31st. At least, that's the agreement I signed up for when we all, the INK members that is, agreed last Saturday night would be a good idea for everyone to send something in.

Okay, I'll play. I need exactly this kind of thing to set me running into 2008. Insert deep breath here.

Clickity-clickity. Back to work.