Pets, Pets and next time on…

A few bits from my life lately.

First,  our household has grown. Meet Kenshi and Pokey (who are shy because they’re not used to the water yet, according to my 6 year old.)

Last week we were talking about seriously considering setting up a tank and the next day we were given one. Of course we had to get the trimmings (which had to wait for pay day) but as of right now Kenshi and Pokey have been with us for nine hours, which (sadly) is the longest I’ve ever managed to keep fish. (Keep in mind that I was a kid those three other times. And I did keep a crawfish for over a year.)

So right now I’m sitting here like a kid again trying not to rush in and check on them every few minutes and marveling that everything’s going well so far. And of course there’s their names. Not to mention unlike all the other fish I’ve tried to keep (which comes up to like 10) they are…well they’ve got real personality. They’ve been playing with things, and playing tag and watching the bubbles from the bubble stone. And they’ve been watching us too.

I’ve never had fish with such personality before (of course I always went with goldfish before too). They are so adorable. (And I’m gushing again. Onward!)

The rest of the week is going to be serious discussion like stuff. In fact, I’m probably going to be boring for a while because between work, working on a kids’ zombie book (that I want to have done to give personal copies to my kiddos for Yule. See, they’re tired of me writing things they can’t read. They like zombies too and want a zombie book that’s scary and funny but not too scary or grown up. Or so I was told.), and trying to prep for Word Fantasy Con (yes, I start preparing a month early, don’t you?) and working on my massive review list I’m very busy and with stuff I’m sure no one else would find fascinating. See this is the part of writing (and life) that gets hidden behind the fun-dazzling-excitement of Stuff! This is the part that people are always looking for a way around. This is putting in the work.

Of course there is fun stuff, like the margarita/hot tub/pinball party with the Horror Belles I’m attending Saturday. And Horror Library volume 4 which I did final proofs on and will be seeing soon. And Dark Futures (OMG look at that table of contents!! Some of my favorite writers are on there! And I can say the same about Horror Library 4!) is out. And I have 3 invites to submit I’m working on.

But I don’t really have anything “officially” coming out after this (though I have several things in a “probably sale but not finalized yet” category. It doesn’t help that there’s been a lot of complications with markets closing or failing or what not this year.

But this is the life, you know, balancing family and work and trying to find time to get words or mutilating manuscripts edit.