Confessions, Revelations, Kicking Ass

First the confession. I play Magic: The Gathering. Competitively. Ahem.

I say this because I had a good day Saturday, and part of that goodness was Magic related. I'd feel silly saying I had a good day without full expanding on all the good stuff. Anyway. There was a release tournament on Saturday, and I won. This is good because Limited (this is where you just open five packs of cards and make a deck out of the randomness) is tough for me. I usually go 0-2 drop or 1-1-1 drop or something like that. But I went 4-0, and in fact didn't lose a single game in my four matches. Swept. Very gratifying.

The goodness continues. Winning got me ten packs. That's nice, getting free cards for having fun. But one of the cards I pealed was Psionic Blast, one of the chase rares for this set. That bitch is worth $25, and the tournament only cost $20. And you get to keep the five packs you used for your deck, so that's 15 packs (225 cards) for free, and I'm up $5. And I had fun, which is really the part that's most important. And I won. Winning is fun.

Then I came home and opened my email, and found out that Interzone bought another story. This is because I am awesome. I am awesome, and my awesomeness is becoming worldwide. I am rocking the set. Yo.

So that was Saturday. It was good.

Slipping aside and waking up

Novel fatigue. Only word for it. I'm at probably 50k words, and I can't write anymore. I can't even think about it. I've just been so close to it for so long that I can't approach it with any kind of discernment. Do these characters make sense? Is the plot cohesive? Am I using the same words and descriptions over and over again? Who knows. The point is, I don't know. So I'm stopping for now. I took last week off from writing completely. That's a big break for me. This week I'm starting on a short story, and then maybe I'll read the book to date and see where I am. Or maybe I'll write another short. Or maybe not. We'll see.

On another front, I got my copy of Interzone 206 a couple days ago. I'm very happy with it. First of all, it's the first time my name has appeared on the cover. Not at the top, or even in a place of prominence, but it's my name, and it's the cover. Because I rock.

It's a very satisfying feeling, and the story itself is one I'm proud of having written. Though, as with all of my stuff, I can see how I'd write it differently if I had it to do again. So this short that I'm working on now will probably be influenced by that, revisiting the old spy-ence fiction noir that I so desperately love. Happy happy.