What I did in February

I wrote a story about Eric Snow that's sure to melt your heart. He's out in the world seeking acceptance
I thought about things for Bibliotheca Fantastica (Dagan Books anthology - deadline March 31st) and made some odd little notes.

Those are the shorts for this month.

Completed the first draft of The Bureau of Them (previously titled Wicked, Full of Promises) at 21,876 words (20,000 words of which were completed this month) and I ended the month 12,786 words into the second draft and discovered that people are not necessarily called what you think they're called. The minor characters aren't playing ball but I will discover their true names.

Didn't touch Cobwebs at all. Permission to slap my wrists granted.

Those are the longer things.

Jeremy C Shipp accepted Dreams of a Ragged Doll for the Attic Toys anthology
The story I wrote last month The Mechanical Heart of Him found a home (Daily Science Fiction)
An old story The Scratch of an Old Record (originally published in Necrotic Tissue) is to made into a podcast (that's a first for me)

So that's two and a bit acceptances.

Other things...
- I wrote a Women in Horror post for Damien Walters Grintalis's blog.
- I lost 8 pounds. In weight, not money. I lost far more money, I'm sure.
- I finished watching season 3 of Fringe and now have to wait until about September for season 4 to be released on DVD. Next up, I'm going to try Broadwalk Empire, which I bought on DVD a few months back. Damn Sky and their darn exclusive Atlantic channel.
- I danced like a mad woman to The Muppets theme tune.
- Armed with a laptop and a debit card I hunted down the lesser-spotted blue guitar just in time for my nephew's 5th birthday. I ate cake. Actually, I ate two cakes because my niece was 7 the same weekend. Well not the whole birthday cake, obviously...Small people would have bitten my hands off if I'd tried. Hands don't taste as good as cake.
- Davy Jones died, which made lots of people :(. I had the pleasure of seeing The Monkees (minus Mike Nesmith - I ♥ Mike Nesmith) in concert in the late 80s. They were fekkin' brilliant.

The Mechanical Heart of Him

I am delighted to announce that the folk at Daily Science Fiction have accepted my short story The Mechanical Heart of Him.

Third acceptance of the year. Need to write more short stories. Bites fingernails and looks at looming deadlines...no, seriously, I do. Writers should be given special clocks at birth that they can use to slow down time when they have a ton of things to write.

This will be my second story published at Daily Science Fiction. My previous story Exit Stage Life (a very wee flash) was published last September.

Barrel Organ Phil & His Marvellous Monkey

It's strange what we remember and what we don't.

I recall going to a hospital with my nan when I was small and that the lobby area was a large circular room. I can still hear the echoing sounds of our footsteps. My mum says this never happened and there is no such hospital in Liverpool.

I also recall a man with a monkey playing an organ in the city centre when I was little. To which I was told to stop being silly and such things hadn't existed since the early 1900s... Muahaha.

While trawling the internet today, I somehow found myself at You Tube searching for old videos of Liverpool and came across this...

...check out the video at about 4:05.

Now all I need to do is find that darn hospital. My quest to prove I am always right continues...


*Photo courtesy of Wikipedia