Carey Burns

What a busy, hectic, madcap month it has been. I'm NaNo - ing but my word count is dismally low. At least I surpassed last year's embarrassment of a word count. I wrote a few thousand words today and just needed a breather. I'll get back to it tonight. I sent in a story submission called "Goldfield Has Gone To Hell" for a cowboy-Indian-zombie themed anthology and am awaiting a response. It's gonna be a looong weekend and I'll be hard-pressed to not check my email every five seconds. I hate surprises, so the waiting-for-an-acceptance/rejection part of writing kills me every time. Its a wonder I don't have raging ulcers by now. Anywho, don't get me wrong, the publisher is one of the speediest that I've ever encountered. Its just me thinking that it is utter garbage and second-guessing myself and my *ahem* writing skills. Let's talk about sparkly things. No, not vampires. Jewelry. I'm doing a craft fair this weekend with my si...

I've been such a slacker with NaNoWriMo! Pretty much all of my buddies are passing me by so I have to kick it into super high gear and write like I've never written before....back to it!!!

"Tarantula!" won 2nd place in the Times' Fright Write contest. Yay for my fear of spiders!!! That means (drum roll, please) that I have reached my goal of having 15 stories accepted for publication this year. From here, anything is possible! We just got back from vacation so I'm trying to catch up on all my side projects and get my NaNoWriMo energy flowing. Speaking of vacation, I'm now obsessed with Creepy Clyde. He was at Screams in Hell, MI and he was just fabulous. I Googled him. Wonder if he could tell... I will be purchasing his CD for sure.

Ack, the Chicago Trib didn't like my story "The Weeping Woman of the Purple Line." I shouldn't let it bother me, but I'd be a liar if I said it didn't. Ah well, at least I can say I had the guts to send something in, right? Now to wait and see what the local paper thought of the story I sent them. (I hope I don't become The Weeping Woman...)

I should be finding out sometime soon whether or not there's any love for the stories I submitted to the Chicago Trib and the local paper. I've seen some of the stories on the Trib's web page and my heart sinks, they're so good. Ah well, time will tell I guess. I'll be filling my brain (mmmm...braaaaaains) with another zombie tale before I kick into NaNoWriMo mode. Exciting stuff!

This is a non-writing post today. What ever happened to being nice to your coworkers? I don't care if you're stressed out or angry with someone else or overworked, it doesn't give you the right to say rude things to people. That said, a lot of people don't think before they speak. Take a moment, take a breath. Say it in your mind and think "Will this crush someone's spirit if I say it to them? Would I be crushed if someone said this to me?" And then edit yourself accordingly. And, if you're one of the people that continually says rude, uncalled for things to your co-workers, please don't EVER complain to me about receiving poor customer service. You probably deserve it--and worse!

These are the costumes I can remember. Many years the weather was too bad to go trick-or-treating but we'd get out the old costumes and dress up until we'd get in trouble and have to put them away. From my earliest Halloween to the most recent, I present: Who I Have Been Raggedy Ann (my brother was Andy) Princess Hershey Kiss Smurfette Santa Claus Vampire Ghost Dot Warner Dead Little Girl Death Takes a Holiday Cat Pixie Gothic Beauty in Red Jon Benet Ramsey (postmortem) Carl (our cat) Sorceress