Out of Hibernation (or, “It’s My Schedule & I’ll Blog When I Want To”)

April 3, 2010 at 8:35 pm (Bizarro, How To Eat Fried Furries, Hubbie, Nicole Cushing, Writing)

Can it be that it’s been two whole months since my last post? Last I wrote, there was probably snow on the ground, and today the fresh-cut grass is green and sweet, and the windows are open to air out the house.

Why the long gap?

I’ve been busy adjusting to a new day job and burning the midnight oil to write a novella.  For the past two or three weeks, in particular, everything has been frantic.  Get up, eat a quick breakfast, off to work at 7:15 a.m., work until 6 p.m. get home around 6:30 or 7:00, eat a quick dinner, start writing….stop writing around 11:00, 1:00, or 2:00.  Get  up.  Rinse.  Repeat.

Such is the glamorous life of an author!

Unfortunately, in the process I missed the Horror Hound Weekend up in Indianapolis (due day job commitments) and the housework has gone by the wayside during this whole time.  My dear, understanding husband has done his best to keep up with things, and I really, really appreciate it.  Today it’s been my turn to contribute:  folding and putting away laundry.

For me, just about every writing project is like this…there’s this intense flurry of activity (especially toward the end of the project) and then afterward it’s as though I”m someone waking up from a drinking spree black out.  Cans of carbonated water litter the house (and especially, my office…I’m addicted) and have to be rinsed out and recycled.  Various drafts of the work-in-progress have to be tossed.  I don’t realize how awful the house looks until I stop the writing and get a good look.

Yuck!

Anyway, currently it’s looking like Eraserhead Press will be releasing How to Eat Fried Furries this fall at Bizarro Con.  I also have a significant short fiction sale that’s in that ” I’d-love-to-be-able-to-talk-about-it-but-can’t-yet territory” — but I can’t wait to share the news here, because it really is the biggest short fiction sale of my career to date (!)

Obviously, I’m hoping to sell the novella I just finished up.  My goal is to follow this novella with another novella (to be done by the end of June), and then finish up the last six months of the year focusing on writing a novel.

So, that’s what’s up with me.

You?

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Bizarro Fandom: A Sexually Transmitted Disease?

February 5, 2010 at 5:17 am (Bizarro, Bizarro Starter Kit, Hubbie, Journal of Experimental Fiction, Negativland, The Residents, Writing)

If This Is The Disease, I Don't Want The Cure

Curious about the literary company I keep, hubbie has started to read some bizarro fiction.

It all started with the delivery of my contributor copy of  the recent all-bizarro issue of The Journal of Experimental Fiction #37.   Maybe that’s the moment when this writing thing of mine became a little more real to him.  A little more plausible as a serious endeavor.  After all, hubbie (like most writers’ spouses) has been my sounding board after rejections and disappointments.  He remembers when my story for that issue was just a first draft off the printer, and he just seems so proud to see the same story now in print.

He very quickly read through the booklet in its entirety.  Actually, I think he said he actually read through it twice — his reading speed puts mine to shame.  The man is brilliant.

Then this evening he asked — asked! — to borrow my copy of The Bizarro Starter Kit (Orange). You have to understand…in my household that’s about as unexpected as a stranger knocking on the door of a Jehovah’s Witness and asking for issues of The Watchtower.

Don’t get me wrong:  hubbie is incredibly supportive of my art.  And for that (and for lots of stuff about him) I’m very grateful.  But when my writing began to take a weird tack — well, more than just weird — you know…a bizarro tack… we went through a phase where he would read a few pages of my first draft, crack a nervous smile, and say “Who are you and what have you done with my wife?”.

But, you know…it only makes sense that he’s catching bizarro fandom from me.  I caught The Residents and Negativland from him.  And what is marriage for, if not catching each other’s cooties?  :)

So the question goes out to all weird authors (or authors of the weird) out there:  has your spouse/partner/significant other caught your cooties?

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