The Semester That Ate My Blogging Time

So, um, you may not remember me, but I used to blog here. I know it’s hard to tell, what with the eerie silence and the dust and all. In fact, the dust bunnies have grown large enough to feast upon small mammals. And that huge one lurking over in the corner? He’s got that “Why, hello there, lunch” look in his eyes.

But seriously, I need to stop pretending that I’m going to have the time and mental reserves necessary to maintain any kind of blogging routine when grad school’s in full gear. So come fall, blog silence will probably resume. But in the meantime, summer break, baby! And only two more semesters left before I’m all masters-degree-ified!

So what’s been going on during the two-plus months I haven’t been blogging? Let me explain … no, there is too much. Let me sum up:

* School. Ridiculous workload. Fried brain.

* Awesomesauce story sale! Beneath Ceaseless Skies bought “The Girl Who Welcomed Death to Svalgearyen,” a story inspired by the Norwegian town Longyearbyen, where you’re not allowed to die. A story I absolutely adored writing + one of my favorite short fiction publications = squee!

* Lots of singing and piano. Even my clarinet got the dust blown off it a couple times.

* My writerly pal Krista Magrowski invited me to do a talk on “Turning Ideas Into Stories and Other Tales from Publishing” for the South Jersey Writers’ Group last month, which was a lot of fun and involved much discussion of bunny wrangling.

* Day job. I’m not sure if I’ve ever mentioned it here, but I’ve been doing a fellowship in an orchestra library, which has been (and continues to be) a great experience.

What hasn’t been going on these last couple months, unfortunately, is fiction writing. I cranked out a bunch of flash pieces right before the start of the semester, but so far I’ve only been able to get one of them cleaned up and flung out into the submission void. But now that I’m done with school until the fall, fiction shall be accomplished!