Sheila Rambles

 Well, well. It's been a while. "Is That What You Want" was rejected by Clarkesworld, rejected by Analog, rejected by The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and rejected by Apex Magazine. That really should be a longer list. I've written and submitted other stories and also have a nice collection of rejections for them as well. Except for one. In June of last year, just before my 51st birthday, I received an acceptance for a short story called "Home" for a shared-world anthology called The Forever Inn. It's coming out, as my dad would say, Real Soon Now. I've already been paid for it, in any event. I'll holler about it when it hits the streets. I skipped NaNoWriMo in 2020 (do you blame me?) but resumed it in 2021, taking on the rather ambitious project of rebooting the very first NaNovel I ever successfully completed. I worked out a detailed outline, broke it down into scenes written on notecards and lined up all over my floor, and then pro

About ten years ago, I wrote a little science fiction story called "Is That What You Want", which is about a transaction in a place that rents out sexbots. It's more of a vignette than a story, but it is complete at a modest 1,400 wordcount. I dug it up from the depths of my hard drive by using the most obvious search term and found that much of my future technology had gone out of date. Soon after, I learned at a panel at Chattacon called "Sex and the Single Robot" that modern technology was getting closer to catching up to my notions of sexbots. I figured I needed to get this story out before it was rendered obsolete. I updated it and ran it past a couple of writers' groups--Vicious Circle and Decatur Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Scribes, both of which are on Meetup and I highly recommend--and the feedback was quite possibly the most positive I've gotten for anything I've ever written. So I gave it one more grind and polish and sent it

I haven't written much here , but I have been writing. I successfully completed National Novel Writing Month this past November, for certain values of "completed." I crossed the 50,000 mark a few days early, and closed out at 54,527 on the 30th. However, the novel itself is not narratively complete, so it ended on " To be continued... " instead. (My outline--which I played with for most of the year--was ridiculously detailed.) I plan to work on finishing it over the next few months (there's not enough material left to merit a sequel out of it, plus I have stuff in mind for the next book in the series) and edit into something rereadable. The revisions on  The Two Kinds of Magic  are progressing nicely, thanks to a writers' group that specializes in genre fiction. (As I've discovered, getting feedback on an urban fantasy from literary types is Not Very Helpful.) I'm already outlining revisions in my head for parts that they haven't even gott

“Forgive me, father, for I have sinned.  My last confession was three months ago.  I have committed a mortal sin, but I did it to preserve the life of my apprentice, my friend, the safety of this world and my own life.” From behind the screen there was a sigh.  Sebastian recognized it.  It was Father Harrison, who usually took confession around this time.  It was safe to tell him everything; he had been red cord bound for years after witnessing someone flying. Father Harrison finally spoke.  His voice was weary.  “Tell me, Sebastian, who have you killed this time?”

Please excuse Sheila from working on Vexations  yesterday and in the near future, as she has run out of things to do to it and will likely not have any new things to do until she receives feedback from her various writers' groups. Thank you.

Please excuse Sheila from working on Vexations  today as she was mesmerized by the supermoon.