A Writer's Paradise

Thanks! Also the Ego Shelf

Thanks, everyone, for the congratulations on the sale to Asimov's. In addition to the fine comments here that shocked me (because I realized more than two people read this), there was a bounty of congratulating over on LJ.

Dave, the pimpin' almost makes it worth somehow being lumped into what Scalzi has termed The Klecha Clutch (distinctive from the Clan because that would be Dave and his blood kin, while the Clutch is comprised also of those of us sucked in by the gravitational force of the Klechaness). Steve, we are so going to be pals. And I promise to learn how to spell your last name if you promise to learn how to spell my first name. :) Or, just call me Mer, like everyone else. To Todd Wheeler and Camille--welcome! Don't be strangers! Vaughan, I can never say enough great things about you--not only are you a good writer, I think you paid me the best writing compliment I've ever gotten from a colleague. And Peg, you are, and always will be the man. In the positive, non-gendered connotation of the word.

Now, on to the spectacle des sons et lumières (only sans sons; this is a fine French phrase that should be in wider parlance, meaning "spectacle of sound and light" and covers so much in the way of cheesy sideshow-type entertainment... but don't tell the French I said that).

Ahem.

The ego shelf.

What, you can't see it?

Better? Okay, no. How 'bout this?

Ah, yes. The contents of my three item ego-shelf. A "shelf" which is nothing more than a cubby in my desk. The items have to share space with the odd-sized dictionaries and a stuffed snail.

Of course, in very short order, the thing can be made to grow. I still hadn't brought Aoife's Kiss (in which there is a reprint of Huntswoman) upstairs as of last night when I took this picture. And it was only this morning that I decided that the two things in which my name appears deserve occupance on said shelf, either (namely, the March 2005 Locus and the most recent Year's Best Fantasy and Science Fiction). But then I decided, it's about ego, and I have such small shreds to feed said ego as it is... so they will soon join these paltry three things. One shelf up, I should think, where library books currently live.

All I can really say is: from such humble ego shelves, great bookcases may grow.

The Writing Life, with Cats

Nothing says "I love you" like stealing your computer and your spot when you get up to go to the bathroom.

The other night, he shut down my computer altogether when he stretched out over the whole keyboard. There's no stopping Merlin when he senses a source of warmth.

I like the detail in picture two--you can see the stripes on his tail, which you mostly can't make out in real life except in strong sunlight. Merlin the Grey, Secret Tabby.