It’s been quite a while since I’ve done one of these!
Work
Again, most of my recently published writing has been for work. For our Word Soup column (think The Soup but focused on words), we did a few special installments: the lexicon of the TV show Glee, science fiction TV, and Super Bowl commercials. For Letter Writing Week back in early January, I wrote a post about different types of letters and notes. For Burns Night on January 25 (which celebrates the Scottish poet, Robert Burns), I wrote about Scottish food words.
The Beautiful Anthology
This spring an anthology I’ve contributed to will be released! I’m keeping company with a whole slew of wonderful writers. Here’s our first blurb:
“Subverting time-worn clichés about beauty and self-acceptance, The Beautiful Anthology delivers a fresh exploration of everything from body art, freckles, and big noses to the misfortunes of musical “perfection,” misguided parenting, birth, and death. It’s a stunning, unforgettable collection.”–Diana Spechler, author the novels Who By Fire (Harper Perennial, 2008) and Skinny (Harper Perennial, 2011).
By the way, I loved Diana’s novel Skinny. In fact, it was one of my favorite books from all of 2011.
Go like the The Beautiful Anthology‘s Facebook page to get all the latest news and updates.
The Novel
I’m still working on it steadily though I admit I totally slacked this past week. If I remember correctly, my goal for January was to work on my novel first thing every day, which I did! Well, except for this past Monday and Tuesday. Over the weekend I finished up a big section (I’m at about 25,000 words) and then got distracted by work and writing a guest blog post (to be published later this month). This weekend – back to the novel grind!
12 Months, 60 Rejections
Last summer I started my 12 Months, 60 Rejections project. Since then I’ve made 20 submissions, and have had three acceptances and six rejections. Two were personal rejections saying, “While we really enjoyed this piece, it’s not right for us.” Okay, I’m choosing to interpret those as personal.
I missed a contest deadline on Friday (duh!) but have a bunch coming up at the end of the month. Plus I have at least one online magazine I want to submit a short piece to.
AWP Chicago
Who’s going to AWP this year? I am! In fact, MB and I are taking the train there, all the way from San Francisco to Chicago. It’s a two day ride, and I’m both excited and nervous. For instance, are there showers on the train? (I just checked: no showers. May have to try out that dry shampoo.) I’ll be live blogging and tweeting the whole experience so you won’t miss out.
If you’re going to the conference, let me know. I’d love to meet up.