Dancing to Dirges

Depressing and happy things Tim says, sometimes while drunk

Monday, October 09, 2006

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.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

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.