'Sure-footed From the Opening...'

That'd be a line related to my story, "The Devil's Crater", from William Maynard's quite positive review of Tales from the Hanging Monkey, over at the Black Gate Magazine blog. If you're interested in giving the anthology a look-see (and after a review like that, why wouldn't you?), you can purchase your copy from Indy Planet.

I got some good news (well, two bits of good news, really) in today's barrage of e-mail (by barrage I mean the five or six e-mails awaiting me when I sit down with my morning coffee), about two submissions which I'll share at a later date (next week). Too, according to Duotrope, my acceptance rate for short stories this year is fifty-three percent, which is both amazing and great. So really, Friday is starting out nicely.

Also, the Olympics began today or yesterday, I forget which. I don't actually care, but I thought I'd mention it. For posterity's sake. Glad I'm living in Sheffield, 's all I'm going to say. 

Yesterday was all about getting on the phone with the Queen-Editor about edits to Project: Scenic Route or, as some may know it, Road of Skulls. Said edits involve re-writes, because good edits ALWAYS involve re-writes of some description, which I will be commencing next week-ish. I love editing; have I mentioned that before? I'm a 'loves having written, not writing' sort of guy, so edits feel more like work to me. Like I'm making actual progress as opposed to simply slapping words on a blank page. I love making changes, revising, polishing, re-writing a completed manuscript. Especially after not having looked at it for five weeks. Makes me feel all professional and what not. 

Also yesterday, I completed the first pass at "The Babel Stone" which was nice. The story wound up being a bit of a loose nod to Borges' "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius", which is one of my favourite Borges stories (remind me, sometime, to talk about how much I freakin' love Borges), next to "The Book of Sand" and "There Are More Things". Not in the same league, obviously, but I like to give credit where it's due. 

Speaking of credit, Andrew Leman and the guys at the HP Lovecraft Literary Podcast produced a dang fine reading of "The Haunter of the Dark", didn't they?