This morning I registered my domain name. I feel a bit queasy and what-have-I-done? about it. I'll have time to adjust, because Mark is off to Kalamazoo (and Tyler too, whoops, wrong rhyme) and I decided to go with Islandnet through him. Nothing can be done until he returns, by which time my stomach should have settled.
Islandnet's $10 Cdn a month, but they're local and easy to get hold of. Which reminds me that I need to start collecting receipts and things so that I can figure out what to do about my taxes next year. Argh. I've seen what Mark goes through doing the small business taxes thing for Gaukler Medieval Wares, and now I'm venturing into the self-employed course?
He keeps saying "You're allowed two work-related conferences a year!" in a cheerful voice. I hope that means he'll keep on doing my taxes.
I suppose designing a website could be fun, in between the screaming in frustration and banging my head parts. Should I have lots of blinking lights and contrasting backgrounds? Maybe some Flash animations to liven things up?
Let's see. Things a website should have: index, bibliography, news, excerpts, bio?
Writing: Finally, into the last quarter of Willow Knot. 83k - did I once say blithely that I was allowing myself 80k so I'd have 5k slop allowance? Ha. I'll be lucky to get out of first draft under 90k. On the good side, much of the last quarter is already written, including the ending. And I'm starting to see my way through the court/intrigue part, and understand what happened there.
I know who the bear is now, and an acute reader should pick it up pretty quickly as well.
Began the conversation that should lead to Alard proposing to Myl (Mylla now) but they've veered off into talking about the divine right of kings (not in those words). That's all right, since it works towards Myl's purpose at court and the dream-vision.
I'm feeling a little more confident about them falling in love in a meeting-of-minds Heyerish way, which is my ideal. Not that I can write as well as Georgette Heyer, but at least if I aim high I fail higher than if I aim low.
I've also realised that neither of them will be in love when they marry, and that Myl's going to enter it in quite a cold-blooded way, hoping to get security and free Tyl from enchantment. With luck the reader will be fond enough of her by then to forgive this unromantic attitude.
I will--I will finish the draft this month. I swear. Witness this.
The first 3 chapters of Cost of Silver (pt. 1 The Astrologer's Death) went up on my LJ. *flinches at admission of having a Livejournal account*. Ferret caught me up on a major historical glitch, which I am humbly grateful for her doing. She also pointed me towards a way around it. Words are insufficient to thank her. Bookherder (another Furtive Scribbler) demanded the next chapter, even if I've run out of festival names (octave, quinzaine - then what? I dunno) so I'll probably do it, because cliffhangers are cheating.
Re-reading the first chapters pleased me--I've gotten past the 'this is all dreadful' stage and reached the 'this isn't bad, did I write it?' stage. If I picked it up in a shop I'd read further.
Soon I'll be able to get back to Astrologer, while letting Willow Knot sit before revision. One of my OWW critique semi-circle was asking about it, too.
Maybe get the Boxer Rebellion magic story and the poltergeist chimney-sweeps story done as well?
Glimmer Train rejected "Foretold", no surprise, and "Bride" didn't win for short fiction, again no surprise. Tesseracts rejected "Spellcheck" which will leave me wondering if I should have sent "Bride" instead--my two stories with Canadian settings.
"Spellcheck" is off to SH, "Foretold" to Fantasy, and "Bride" to Clarkesworld because it has a sexy vampire and I only need 4 more rejections to meet my 2007 goal.
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