- Remember, as the Midrash says, "Beginnings are hard."
- You're probably feeling isolated -- try to stay in touch with people.
- This is what grad school is like -- don't worry about worrying.
- Did you remember to take your synthroid?
- Everyone's as behind as you are. :-)
I'm in the midst of a bunch of stuff right now. I'm trying hard to get "A Gentle Man" in shape to send out -- it's almost there -- so close! I find interesting that several people who wrote in liked the story but liked one of the secondary characters even more, and wanted a story (or in one case, a novel) about her. It's funny in part because I wasn't planning on writing a story from her point of view; she shows up in four of the other stories, and I think you get a pretty good idea of her from those. We'll see, though.
I'm nervous about this one because it's going to a literary market. I've sent to such before, but now that I'm in this program it suddenly feels much more serious. I'm honestly not sure why.
Other things that have been taking my attention have been scholarship/fellowship/travel grant applications. I'm considering taking a summer intensive Tamil course this summer, and then applying for a Fullbright to Sri Lanka (and probably several smaller scholarships). If I get the Fullbright, and use it, I'll be in Sri Lanka for nine months in my third year of this program. On the one hand, it would be a tremendous opportunity -- on the other hand, the prospect really scares me, for a whole bunch of reasons. I'm not going to think too hard about it right now, though -- the Fullbright application doesn't even come out until June.
Meep.
On the plus side, we've had another lovely issue of Strange Horizons. We're still quite short of articles, so if you're at all interested, please check out our guidelines on that. Please. But despite a shortage there, we haven't fallen behind schedule yet. Huzzah! This week we put up a new astronomy article from Brian Tung; I really like the way he writes his science. I can almost understand what he's saying. :-) And there's a short story called "Occurrence at Arroyo de Buho Bridge" which apparently is related to another famous story that I haven't read; I enjoyed this one anyway. And there's a fantasy review of Mercedes Lackey's Brightly Burning. I feel a little ambiguous about this one -- the reviewer liked the book a lot more than I did. I thought it was okay, but not even close to Lackey's best. Of course my favorites of hers are the threesome novels, and this is set in an entirely different universe... so maybe I'm prejudiced.
Oh, and I updated my page of other journals with new journals from Jenn (Clarionite) and Susan (new SH fiction editor). Very cool. :-) I love having new journals to read.
Anyway. Fingers hurting, so I'm going to wander off. Talk to you later...