It's Hard to Hold a Candle in the Cold November Rain

This is a picture of a cheeseburger between two grilled cheeses. Your argument is invalid.

So I was going to post a lot more about our Portland trip but then I realized that probably nobody cares and also it's been over a month since we got back so not topical anymore, you know? I have to be honest, I've been pretty upset since we returned. Anyone who knows me even a little (which is probably most of the people who read this journal?) knows that I haven't been fond of this Baltimore place since approximately two weeks after I got here. Going to a city like Portland, where everyone is so friendly and the streets mostly don't smell of pee and despair, just reminded me that even though in some ways I've "made it" here, that I have friends and a job and my writing, I am really not happy. Yeah, I know, most people aren't happy, suck it up. But it's getting to the point where I'm emotionally wrecked whenever I leave Baltimore, because I have to come back, and this is something that can't continue indefinitely. So yeah, changes are coming even if they're not coming as fast as I would like.

Anyway, in writing news, my #fullcommunism story "The Afternoon Revolution" was accepted for the Bundoran Press political SF anthology Strange Bedfellows, along with original stories by Eugie Foster, Ian Creasey, Craig DeLancey, Alter Reiss, and many more. So look for that in April 2014, yay!

Rob and I attended Capclave in October, go read his exhaustive recap on The Book Stew. This was the con that killed our car, but good riddance. It was great to see all my east coast SF writer friends, and I hope we can meet up with everyone at least one last time before going wherever it is we're going.

Lastly, although I am not doing Nanowrimo, I am currently in the process of turning out a long-form November-centric writing project. After spending the past few years exclusively focused on short stories, writing something with more word length is weird. You mean I can add elements, not subtract them? You mean I can/should put in character moments and world-building that has nothing to do with the central idea? It's really weird to me, and I'm not sure I like working long like this, but it's an experiment to say the least. But don't worry, short fiction, you'll always be first in my heart.