Just a reminder: if you want to put your name in for the SOUL SONG buzz campaign, Monday is your last day. So hop to it!
***
So, remember the cow? Never did reappear, though it left a “gift” the size of a hubcap. No worries—there’s a lot of land, and it’s out of the way—but let it be said that just when you think a dog could not possibly stoop (or roll) any lower…well, you get the picture (and not the one below, which shows my spotted wonder at his most angelic, mainly because he’s trying to impress Grand Princess of the Universe Daisy).
I will say, however, that Lucky has a gift for gross. He had a tick on him that I hadn’t noticed. A big swollen ready-to-pop tick—and he knocked it off all by himself while scratching. I was there. I saw it. And I was also watching when he swooped down and ate the darn thing. Now that, my friends, is truly and horrifically disgusting. Especially when there are sound effects.
For reference, Daisy is the poodle. Lucky isn’t.
***
This lovely piece of advice from an interview with Peter Ho Davies:
Who has the time to write the same story twice? I�m not taking a long career for granted necessarily. So once you�ve done the best you can with something, why would you replicate it? That, I suppose, takes me from the aesthetic pleasure in variation to the very practical one. When you publish your first story, it becomes a touchstone, a place of confidence, something you go back to in grim moments and you think, “At least I could do that.” But then everything you write afterwards, for a little while, you compare to that thing. The first draft of the new story always sucks compared to the last draft of the old story. That sense of competing with yourself can be kind of crushing, even overwhelming.
I published my first story when I was twenty-one and I didn�t publish my next story until I was twenty-six. This was for a variety of reasons, but one of them at least was that I was trying to write the same story again. Yet every effort to that end would seem to fall short. What I eventually learned was to stop trying to do the same thing. It helped me deal with that sense of competition with myself. So if the last story was very serious, why shouldn�t the next one be comic? By changing the framework, changing the terms of comparison, the stories become incommensurable. You can thereby freeze that internal critic, that internal voice of judgment. This method helped me through various writing blocks as well. So that�s the pragmatic reason for pushing stories in different directions.
***
BACKPACKER MAGAZINE
http://www.backpacker.com/guidelines/0,3132,,00.html
—
Prefers queries to completed manuscripts. Send emails with attachments and web links rather than mailing envelopes with letters and clips. $.60 to $1.00 per word, depending upon the complexity and demands of the article, as well as the proven experience of the writer. Freelancers most often break into BACKPACKER’s pages in the departments. These shorter assignments (100 to 1,200 words) have specific topics and focus.
=====
CALLIOPE
http://www.cricketmag.com/pages_content.asp?page_id=21
—
CALLIOPE � covers world history (East / West) and we are looking for lively, original approaches to the subject. Keep in mind that our magazine is aimed at youths from ages 8 to 14. Themed magazine. Pays up to 25 cents/word.