Here’s what’s happening on my desk and in my life.

The biggest news in my life is that I don’t have <serious, chronic, debilitating condition of the joints>. I’ve always drawn a line around blogging about medical issues because it sounds whiny to my ear, so I’ll just say this: I need to take it easy for another 8 weeks or so, and then I should be back running again. A huge weight is off my mind, and worries that have been slowing me down for the last two months turned out to be overblown.

Isn’t that how worry nearly always turns out?

On to the desk. Right now, in front of me I see some ASL study materials, a diagram of a story I’m working on (sketched on the back cover of the FOGcon program), a photo from a recent party, and another paper of Pixar’s Storytelling Rules that was taped on my wall but keeps falling down, and a library check-out receipt. Food items: two kinds of chocolate, a glass of yerba mate, xylitol, and a stray ketchup packet.

On the writing front, my Duotrope subscription expired and I have no current plans to renew. We’ve drifted apart. While setting up their transition to a paywall site, they added a bunch of features–notably tracking pay-to-submit as well as nonfiction sites–that are of absolutely no interest to me. I’ve migrated over to The Grinder, which although experiencing several kinds of growing pains, is already a closer fit to the kind of market research tool I need. Also most of my friends have switched as well. 🙂

Despite various stresses, I have been writing, and submitting. My novel is away after a full request  Including that, I have nine pieces making the rounds at the moment, soon to be ten if I can finish up this one thing on my (computer) desktop. This is after retiring several older stories, so it’s a strong bunch, and I won’t be too surprised to see some of them end up in a good home soon.

I’m also signed up for Brandon Sanderson’s online writing workshop, which AFAICT is supposed to begin tomorrow. Should be fun. There’s an idea for a next novel burning a hole in my brain, so the less I write on the blog, the more I can plan on that project.

Don’t worry, be happy.