short story cheque!

The flight home from Marcon was (thankfully) uneventful, and my guitar survived yet another trip in the hands of Air Canada's baggage handlers.

When I got home, I found a contract and cheque for the DAW anthology short story I co-wrote with Michelle Sagara West. Woohoo, my first sf/fantasy fiction sale! The story will appear in Fairy Tails, published by DAW in 2004. My very first fiction sale was a short story called "The Harmonica Man" that I sold to a magazine called Hobnob. I was so thrilled with my payment of US$10 (which is like $1000 in Canadian funds, of course) that I kept the cheque instead of cashing it. :-) I've made sales since but that first one will always be my favourite.

Anyway, it was nice to find the cheque waiting for me in the mail instead of more bureaucratic hassles from the Canadian government, though I'm sure more of the latter still lurks in the wings. I went out to celebrate by having dim sum at King's Garden, my favourite Chinese restaurant in Toronto. I ordered hot and sour soup, shrimp dumplings, and sticky rice in lotus leaves. Yummmm.

Speaking of food, don't forget to fill out my food survey. You know you want to.





I'll be including Marcon highlights as Blatherphoto blurbs over the next while. Be warned that Marcon was mostly a social con for me; I didn't attend much of the programming. Jodi and I were more in the mood to just listen to others perform, or hang out and chat with friends. I think we only performed two songs in open filk during the weekend (Library Boy and I Am Stardust). Playing I Am Stardust was much more difficult than I thought; my hands started shaking as soon as we launched into it. I hope Lloyd forgives me, wherever he is.

If you're interested in a real Marcon report, I'm sure others will start popping up in rec.music.filk and other online venues.

Today is Lyanne Quirt's birthday...happy birthday, Lyanne!

And those of you in relationships, or those wanting to avoid the same, might want to check out Things My Girlfriend And I Have Argued About. (Thanks to Andrew for the link!)

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Today's Blatherpics:

	One of the vendors in the Marcon dealers' room on the last day of the convention using a direct marketing technique.
	Jodi, Andrea and Rand at the hotel coffee shop, displaying the purchases they had just made in the dealers' room. Jodi: a Spiderman comic. Andrea: a Talis Kimberley album (Archetype Cafe, I think). Rand: Carla Ulbrich's and Joe Giacoio's newest CD. My own purchase: paperback version of Neil Gaiman's American Gods.
	Daniel and Melissa Glasser.