New Website

I will no longer be posting at this address. Reason: I have my own website now.

Please visit (and grab the RSS feed for) http://mrmarkey.com

Thanks!

Sale - Brain Harvest

I've just sold my story "Shatter Shatter" to the fine folks at Brain Harvest (An Almanac of Bad Ass Speculative Fiction). Here is a teaser:

My real name is Cherie, but you can call me Cherry or I might just rake your face. My nails are epic weapons, like napalm or dynamite. You already know about glass hearts, but I bet you've never seen one, not even your own.

I'm pretty thrilled, not least because Brain Harvest is an awesome new market.

The story should be up sometime in August. I'll post when I know more. In the mean time, why not browse some of the stories there? They are all under 750 words, and are all pretty badass.

Maybe you need this.

Dropbox.

It's an online storage site. I use it to keep updated drafts of my stories, as I am frequently writing on different computers. And I *always* lose my USB thumb drives. It's very unfortunate.

I was skeptical at first, but then I took the leap, and gave this site a try, partly because of some great reviews I've read about it on Lifehacker(.org).

So I wanted to point it out to anyone reading this who might need an extra bit of security.

Best part? Totally free. 2GB of storage for no $$$. That works for me, because I mostly just have my manuscript drafts there, and those take up like, a whisper of space.

So, if you want to try it out, I really recommend it. Also, if you would sign up through THIS link, we both get extra space. For Free!!

It's not for everyone, I know, but maybe you want to give it a try. Let me know what you think.

Uh, I'm laying down a beat, for you, KEEP GOING

atAuto-tune the news #5 drops today.

Okay, I was waiting for this for a few weeks now, and when I saw it came out today, I was instantly in a good mood, like when a cd you've been waiting three years for finally comes out (or, I guess, leaks to The Pirate Bay).

When you find something that you love, you should overdose on it. Watch this video 15 times. Don't stop reading Magic For Beginners, take a cross-country road trip with the one(s) you love.

Here's the video at least, the rest is up to you:



Katie Couric lays it down, and that beat is hot like hydrogen fusion on nitrous oxide. POP.

Progress Report 6-14-09

The goal for today (which was a far busier day than yesterday = 1,000 words.

Did I make it? Oh, yes. I did. See for yourself.

1028 / 1000 words. 103% done!

And the progress bar in the menu (to the left) tells me that I have done 10%. That's a 1% increase from yesterday.

GASP! ZOOM! POW!


It's like laying in the grass and watching a snail ooze forward, but, you know, without the fresh air and bird songs. But also, without the grass stains.

Nature 0. My blog 1.

My dragonfruit brings all the boys to the yard, and they're like "it's better than yours

I call this piece "Grainy Dragonfruit on Cuttingboard." Taken with my high-tech Blackberry Perl 8100 cameraphone. Needs some work.

Here is a better picture that is also not mine (a.ka. gakked from here).



Pretty, no?

The cashier at Southeastern Supermarket (an Asian food store) told me these are flown in overnight from Vietnam, and really really encouraged me to try it. "It's good. Lots of seeds inside. Million million seeds."

Verdict: WEIRD. It has the consistency of Kiwi fruit, possibly a firmer. The seeds crunch like poppy seeds, but aren't as bitter. For me, the dragonfruit was mostly tasteless, with a slight, subtle after taste resembling watermelon. Not bad, but for 5 dollars, I'll probably not be buying too many of them.

Pretty, though.

Novel Updatery + A very loud THUNDERSTORM

Today began as a tough day in novel-writing land, where I realized my story had jumped the tracks and crashed in to a Children's Hospital/Puppy Emporium. This is a bad thing. So I overcame my reluctance to back track in the story and fix anything before I have a completed draft. Sometimes, you just gotta do what you gotta do. Inspiring, right?

So I went back to mid chapter 2, and started down a different path, one that led away from disaster (you know, not for the characters). Good things happened! Words were written!

Progress Was Made

1488 / 1485 words. 100% done!

Happiness was achieved.

(Side note: 1485 was a rather arbitrary number that I picked and set out to achieve--just for the record.)

Also, today there was much crashing and banging of thunder and lightning. Also rain. And wind. Salt Lake City rarely sees such severe thunderstorms (which were a common enough occurrence when I lived in Florida), so I was a little bit excited today. Also worried. The city is less prepared to deal with flash floods and high winds. Beth was out running errands when the storm started, so there was a bit with pacing and watching the storm/waiting for Beth to drive up. She did, and all was well.

ALL was well.

(pic gakked from here, which was gakked from Futurama).

Chapter 2 - Finished

Tonight I finished the second chapter of my novel. Exciting! This one came out to be about 2800 words. I'd say it was longer than I'd planned, but there is no plan, really. It's just longer than the first.

Progress! Action!

Maybe I will post an excerpt tomorrow or never. Still undecided about that one.