Oh yeah, it’s Friday. Sorry, been snowed in since yesterday, so time has no meaning. And this is Texas, so snowed in pretty much means that there is snow or ice and it’s sticking, so Amanda doesn’t go outside in it. Amanda doesn’t do wet cold.

News:

I’m back in the Shallow Waters contest at the Crystal Lake Patreon ($5/month tiers and up). This month’s theme is Liminal Spaces, and my story, “Delirium,” comes out around January 29, the second to the last in a group of 20 pieces of flash fiction. Join us if you like bite-sized themed horror fiction.

Preorders for WriteHive’s cozy speculative anthology Rescuing Curiosity are open now, coming out March 6. My story, “Marginalia,” is part of this one. I rarely write cozy or stories set in the future, so this was out of my comfort zone twice.

Works in Progress:

I finished the first edit/rewrite round of Masque two days ago, taking the story from 110,972 words (including about 4K words of notes and outline) to 97,811 words, which is a perfectly respectable number. So that’s the first rounds of the Dracula reimagining and Masque done and dusted. I’m taking a few days off to do a few smaller things before diving back in. The submission call I anticipated isn’t open, so I’m not in a hurry to meet a hard deadline by end of the month.

The last two days, I’ve been furiously working on getting A Nightmare for All Seasons for publication, including purchasing an affordable cover, reading the poems out loud to make sure they’re right, writing the introduction and the back cover copy, creating graphics for the main title page and section title pages (which I’ve never done before, and I’m really proud of myself for doing through Canva for free, even though they’re basic; it takes the book to the next level and emphasizes that these are five discrete sections), and meticulously formatting the uploaded document in Atticus (which had already paid for itself before this). Atticus is set up for prose, not poetry, so it’s fiddly, but I’m really happy with the end result.

I’m waiting on getting the cover back, and I have to also wait on some outstanding poems on sub, because I didn’t know I was going to include Lullabies for an Apocalypse in the collection when I sent those poems out. At this point, I’m hoping I can self-publish this sometime in February if I receive rejections. Longer, though, if something’s accepted and I have to account for exclusive rights. Yes, if someone’s willing to pay me for poetry, damn right I’m delaying for a pet project few people are going to read. Either way, it’ll be ready. I should set it up in the Poetry/Short Story page tomorrow.

Through the weekend, I think I’ll work on a few flash fiction pieces on the docket. Then I should be able to start on second-round edits for the Dracula reimagining.

Books I’m Reading:

The Fisherman by John Langan
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Sister, Maiden, Monster by Lucy A. Snyder

Things I’m Listening To:

Christmas playlist (finally got through the whole collection, which is a lot, and now I’ve got it on random until I start working on the Dracula reimagining again)

Things I’m Watching:

Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
A Charlie Brown Christmas
Jumanji
I Saw the TV Glow
The Holiday
Barbie
Murder, She Wrote: The Celtic Riddle
Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell
Glass Onion
Wishmaster 4: The Prophecy Fulfilled
Prince of Darkness
Brilliant Minds series
Found series
The Irrational series
Abbott Elementary series
Home Town series
Longmire series (finished)
Great British Baking Show: Holiday Edition series (finished)
Monk series (Season 6 finished for New Year’s binge watch)
Columbo series
CSI: NY series
S.W.A.T. series

Poem of the Week:

take care not to offend
your friendly neighborhood
coven of witches
lest your foolishness
burst from you like stuffing
and leave you in stitches