Better brush up on my Spanish

I had a pleasant surprise. A friend of mine, that I haven't heard from in years because she moved to Mexico, just got an Internet connection. I know, why did I not call her all these years? Well I tried but she doesn't have a home phone. I could only contact her at work and guess what? She's the only one working there that speaks English. So needless to say aside from the long distance charges, there were other difficulties.

We were really close when she moved. She threw my high school graduation open house when my parents refused to. That's how awesome of a person she is. Well that's just one of many great things she did for people.

Anyway, I was extremely sad when we lost touch but luckily for me her sister and my sister work together and that's how I found out she now has e-mail. So I spent the good portion of yesterday writing an e-mail to catch her up on the last few years and of course overloading her with questions about her beautiful family and her new, well not so new anymore, home.

And I was happy to find this morning that she got the e-mail and returned it. She wasn't upset with me for not having called her because as she said, the phone works both ways. (I'm sure somebody else said it first but oh well.)

So other than me having a new pen pal, what does it all have to do with writing? Well the story that I wrote a few years ago, Papa's Little Angel, it's based on my friend and her family. Everything except the sci-fi parts of course. Her daughter could not teleport, to the best of my knowledge. So I have to thank her and her family for inspiring to write a story that got me second place in a writing contest.

And I just wanted an excuse to write about how excited I am to be in touch with her again.

2006 Year in review!

Well only a few hours left of 2006. It's been really tough year personally but I have had a few good things in the writing part of my life.

The year started off well when my story "Papa's Little Angel" won second place for short fiction in the LCC division of the L.A.N.D. writing contest. And after talking about it for some time Jenni and I officially began writing "Behind the Naugahyde". I was also very excited when my short-short story "Sweaty Palms" was published in the September 2006 issue of Writer's Post Journal.
Not to mention that Jenni and I received three letters from agents requesting to see more of "Behind the Naugahyde" and BehindtheNaugahyde.com was started.
I would have completed NaBloPoMo by posting everyday during the month of November but I missed one post and I also started a new, not yet titled, novel but did not finish NaNoWriMo or NaNoPloMo. And I received 89 rejection notices this year.

Last night I switched to the blogger beta version. I'm not sure how long it will take me to tag my post but I'll try to work on it.

Hope everyone has a safe and very happy New Year!

NOT another bill!

Now that the Christmas season is over I no longer run to the mailbox when I hear the carrier drop off my mail. Since there are no more cards coming there is no reason to get excited. Bills are not exciting. They are quite the opposite. So today when I heard the clank of the mailbox I took a nap.
When I finally decided I should get the mail I was not disappointed. There was the telephone bill, the garbage bill and a Lansing community College envelope. Since I'm behind on paying tuition, I was quite certain it was just to yell "YOU OWE MONEY!", or perhaps to even tell me I had been dropped from the class. All in all, the mail wasn't happy! Boo!
I threw it on my desk and eventually opened it later in the day. SURPRISE!
I won second place for short fiction in the LCC portion of the L.A.N.D. writing contest!
I don't know how many people entered so it could be that I was one of two people who submitted, but I don't care. I'm excited. I've never won anything in my life. It's so cool. I'm sure it's not that big of a deal but oh well.
The story I won with is called "Papa's Little Angel". It's a story I wrote for a writing sample when I first started my attempt to find an artist to collaborate with. I didn't really think it would win but it was one of two stories I had that met length requirements so I sent it along. It's a story about a young girl who can teleport and her troubled life after she teleports her dad out of prison. That's probably not a good description. I'd post the story but it had to be unpublished and I'm not certain if posting it here disqualifies it from the state portion of the contest that all 1st and 2nd place winners are entered in. Seeing as how I'm pretty new to the publishing rights and stuff, I'll leave it off for now but once the state part is over I'll post it.

In other news I wrote another sonnet. I"m not going to post it until I decide what my true intentions are for my superhero sonnets. Sorry I keep teasing but never posting.
I also started research for my next novel. I don't want to give too much away but it's a fictional book that revolves around the AIDS pandemic. I'm really excited about this idea, I just hope I can write it well.
The other thing is I got my Writer's Market 2006 today. Now I can start my new submissions for the year. Then the mail will get interesting again as I wait for not only bills but rejection notices.