A Curious Statistical Anomaly

Woke up to find the house surrounded in fog.  At first I didn’t notice because the rain was pattering on the sky light and it was rather dark.  Once I got up and looked out there was fog, the thin grey blanket type over, around, and cloaking everything.  It made for the kind of grey, lazy day where you just spend your time catching up on all the little chores you’ve been meaning to do.

Picked up the kitchen and cleaned the counters and stove top.  Then started on the big job.  Taking down the Christmas tree.  Wish we could leave it alone since my back has been quirky for days now.  But, it’s not the decorating statement I want to make.  The hold up was having to replace the ornament boxes which we’ve had for years and were more tape than box now.  So, lots of shopping and checking in stores as we did errands over the last couple of weeks and found a couple of reasonable substitutes.  It seems that ornament boxes have become tiny little things that won’t hold ornaments — go figure.  So, today we took all the ornaments off the tree and got them packed up.  We started going branch by branch to pull the branches towards the center: you know when you separate and fluff them when you put the tree up that you just have to squeeze them all down again.  Got about 1/6th of it done.   Hopefully, tomorrow we’ll finish that bit of it and get the tree apart, wrapped, and stored.  Then it’s clean the living room and rearrange the furniture and the plants.

Meanwhile, I’m almost done with a sock … maybe another 1/2 inch and bind off. Then start the second one.  I joined the Rocking Sock Club and I’m really looking forward to the first package.  I’ve never joined a sock club before but heard a lot about this one.  I  just never remembered about it during the signup period.

I’ve found the black yarn for the bear’s face so hope to get that done tomorrow or at the very least over the next week. I’ve been finishing things lately and that’s a good thing.  Got the cowl done.  Just need to sew in the ends and block.  Should have pictures up for that soon.

Meanwhile, I’ve been reading in all the in between times to get my commitments for reviews done this month.  Trying to catch up and arrange some interviews before it gets too late, too.

Gumshoe Review published it’s first original short story this month.  We’ve already chosen the story for February.  We hope to have a new story featured each month.  This is a new venture for us and we’re still working out how to streamline the system: reading the submissions, ranking them, going over our favorites, notifying the authors whether we’re interested or not.  We’re getting better but still need to get a system that’s easy for us to deal with and make swift decisions for the sake of the authors.

Nevertheless, I still feel even though I got a lot done today that I’m still running in place rather than moving forward.

The flight home from San Jose was much nicer than the one going to San Jose. For one things the flight home didn’t have two screaming babies. I really wish there was some no-fail method of seeing that babies didn’t have to suffer from blocked ears. I understand the crying and feel so sorry for them, but when you’re crammed into too small seats in a full plane it’s hard to maintain perspective and serenity. But coming home we only had to deal with a completely full plane and no empty seats at all.

We got in and crashed. We slept almost twelve hours. Then went out bought a few supplies, emptied the fridge of a few things that didn’t make it. The big surprise was at the Post Office. We stopped the mail from Thursday to Monday. So, Tuesday when we picked it up, getting two filled US Postal bins was a bit overwhelming especially when added to the FedEx and UPS deliveries that had come to the house while we were gone. (We have two trash can just for deliveries — to protect the books from wet weather.).

Needless to say, I spent today entering books into the database and clearing out regular mail and spam as well as the electronic kind. I ran some system checks on my PC too. Mid-morning (I got up at 6:30AM), I found I could barely keep my eyes open and ended up taking a nap.

Somehow, I associate napping with being either very young — I hated them as a child — or very old. Well, I’m not that old but with the two conventions separated by a week and a cross country trip for one of them, I guess I’m getting into napping territory. It did help. When I got up — I really felt refreshed and the minor headache I’d had was gone. Of course, that was hours ago and now I’m dragging again, and the headache — not to mention other aches and pains — are back.

Hopefully, tomorrow I’ll be back on schedule and can get my reviews up and finish off the odds and ends of the November issues of the zines.

I spent most of today trying to catch up on all the TODO notes I have hanging about my workspace. Tomorrow is our last day to get stuff done for the November issues of SFRevu and Gumshoe Review before leaving for San Jose, CA and the World Fantasy Convention.

We leave in the middle of the night on, or early Thursday morning, depending on your point of view. We’ll be posting about the convention because we’re attending specifically to cover it and to talk with other people in the field (and hopefully get a chance to get to know the Capclave 2010 Guests of Honor).

I’m really looking forward to the convention but dreading the ordeal of airport security. I don’t do really well standing in lines and not being able to pace. For some reason I get dizzy and feeling weird if I have to stand in one spot for any length of time. It would be easier to face if I actually believed that all their security theater actually made me safer but let’s face it, most of us know it doesn’t make us safer, it just is so inconvenient that we start to believe it must have some positive result. Anyway, that’s just my opinion and I haven’t seen any thing to make me change it lately.

So, now I have to decide what to bring to read on the plane/in the airport/while waiting in long lines. I’ll most likely end up with the books that I haven’t gotten to yet and I’m supposed to review by November 1st. This month has been unreal in its ability to gobble up my time. More about time in another post.

We went live with the magazines at midnight on September 1st, but we just finished all the tweaks and polishing of the chrome this evening.  The major problem this month was me.  Yup, me.

I got the flu or a cold but it might be the flu.  Yes, I googled the symptoms and I’ve got all of them so I don’t know what I’ve got.  So, I’ve been dragging around for a couple of weeks barely getting out of my own way and trying to do the things that absolutely had to be done and smoothing over the rest.  That means I OCR documents, put the pages together and proofed  them.  Entered and proofed reviews that were sent to me.  Stared at the screen for inordinate amounts of time but didn’t add a line to my novel.  Sent out the announcement of the finalists for the WSFA Small Press Award. I answered some email and entered books.

And I read.  I don’t know what most people do but when I don’t feel good I read.   I read nearly everything I was assigned this month and then some.  The problem is that, feeling as crappy as I did — I didn’t write the reviews immediately but waited.  I thought, silly me, that I’d write them the last three days of the month since I’d already taken notes and stuck stickies in the books to remind me of things I could do that.  Except I then got laryngitis and Hyperion got sick and several people who normally don’t wait to the last minute did and ….

Well, I ended up adding new material on September 1st and 2nd.  So, now we’re really done with the zines and so, if you already checked it out — check again — there may be new stuff because I combed my email today for everything I missed and now–deep sigh,  it’s time to start all over again for the October issue.

Speaking of upcoming events, I’m hoping to get an interview with Monica Fairview the author of The Other Mr. Darcy in October.  She’s doing a blog tour and I’m hoping she’ll be able to squeeze it in between stops.  I’ve got the list of the blogs she’ll be visiting and will post it closer to the start of her tour and just before I post my review of the book.

Gumshoe is going to be running an interview with Laura Childs in October to go with the release of her new book, Tragic Magic (A Scrapbooking Mystery).  I’ll also be reviewing season one of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.

On the SFRevu side, I need to see what books we’re reviewing for October and start contacting people to line up an interview.  The problem is usually not that there aren’t enough people to ask but that I dither on trying to decide who to ask because I want to ask them all.

Then there’s the knitting.  I’ve got a pair of socks on the needles and the first one is nearly to the heel.  I’ve got a sweater that needs to be steam pressed and hemmed and a button added.  And, I’ve got two other started sweaters that I hope to finish this fall.  Then there’s the spinning of yarn that I need to do.  I’d hoped to get some spinning done by requesting an audio book for review but when it arrived it was print–no problem but I was looking forward to the listening time.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to get my act together to get geared up for Capclave 2010. I’m really excited about the opportunity to be a convention chair and hope that the convention will turn out to be one that everyone enjoys from the Guests of Honor to the Volunteers to the attendees.

Looking this over, I think I may be over-committed…nah…it will be fun.

It’s been a long week catching up on all the things that needed to get done to go live with the SFRevu and Gumshoe Review‘s September issues at midnight tonight. Adding to the difficulty this month is that for the last week or so I’ve been fighting off the flu or a cold (the verdict is still out on that one–symptoms of both) and Sunday I woke up with laryngitis. I can squeak but not talk…arghhh…no yelling from my office space to Hyperion’s space. Thank heavens for ICQ. No being able to talk is very frustrating just when I don’t need more frustration.

This month, I want to focus on Gumshoe Review for a moment. A couple of months ago, the Senior Editor Ernest Lilley and I decided to add essays and fiction to Gumshoe Review. We checked over other magazines and decided on $.05 (5 cents) per word up to a total of 1,000 words — thus we meet most mystery writing associations criteria for professional pay to writers. We hope to publish one story and one essay per issue to start but to do that we need to get the word out. The following announcements has been listed in my Just the Facts post in this months issue and I decided to post it to my blog hoping it will get picked up and noticed by interested parties. Anyway, check out the zines and let me know what you think of them, I’m always looking for constructive feedback.

CALL FOR SUBMISSION:

Special Announcement: Fiction
Gumshoe Review is now open to accept fiction. The short stories should be no longer than 1,000 words. Pay will be 5 cents per word to a maximum of $50 (so if the story is longer you still only get $50). Our plan is to publish one short story per month. Essays should be sent as plain text within the body of an email or as a .txt, .pdf (not password protected), .doc, or .wp attachment to editor@gumshoereview.com. Please use the subject line “Gumshoe Short Story Submission”. We will acknowledge receipt of the story immediately but it may take us longer to respond about whether we will use the story in an upcoming month. Unfortunately, until we see what type of response we get we won’t be able to estimate response time. Please include a short bio with the story. Works should be original and unpublished.

Gumshoe Review Special Announcement: Nonfiction Essays
Gumshoe Review is now open to accept nonfiction essays on topics of interest to readers, writers, and students of the mystery genre. The essays should be no longer than 1,000 words. Pay will be 5 cents per word to a maximum of $50 (so if the essay is longer you still only get $50). Our plan is to publish one essay per month. Essays should be sent as plain text within the body of an email or as a .txt, .pdf (not password protected), .doc, or .wp attachment to editor@gumshoereview.com. Please use the subject line “Gumshoe Essay Submission”. We will acknowledge receipt of the essay immediately but it may take us longer to respond about whether we will use the essay in an upcoming month. Unfortunately, until we see what type of response we get we won’t be able to estimate response time. Please include a short bio with the essay particularly mentioning your qualifications in the field. Works should be original and unpublished.

That’s right. We managed to get an interview with Terry Pratchett for SFRevu this month. Emily Whitten, the Vice-Chair of the North American Discworld Convention 2009, actually interviewed him late last year and was kind enough to share it with us.

We also have Drew Bittner’s interview with Mike Carey about his work on The Torch comic series. He also interviewed Scott Neitlich of Mattel about how toys get from the drawing board to your shelves.

The issue is rounded out with a short memorium for Charles Brown and of course our columns and reviews.

Check it out and let us know what you think.

It’s been a long two days. I lost about 8 hours of prime work time when we lost power on Wednesday after the storm. So, it’s been a wild two days getting the zines up and live for your reading pleasure.

Please check out:
SFrevu
Gumshoe Review
and our weekly zine:
TechRevu

and as always feedback on the issues is welcome. I’m so looking forward to a good nights’ sleep.

It’s been a mad house here all day. The napping thing seemed to do the trick. I’m still a bit behind but the magazines are done and will be online and live at midnight or July 1st. (There may be a tweak or two done tomorrow for the things that came in too late for me to deal with tonight–but they’re going live anyway.)

Check them out:

SFRevu — all things science fiction and fantasy

Gumshoe Review — mystery,  thrillers, and related.

TechRevu — updates articles on Mondays and news items everyday.

Now it’s time for me to gear up and go battle the Insomnia beast into submission — I’d say sleep or die but I’m still working on that napping thing. Good night and let me know what you think of the zines.