Not only have I been unable to write anything at all, let alone anything good, in the past weeks, but tonight I find out that my favorite Internet radio station has ceased live broadcasts as of last night. I am so pissed off about it, and stunned. It was the only thing keeping me sane as I worked, and now it is gone. I'm totally lost. And I tried for a half hour to find another decent station that didn't require me to download some other "player" software, but nothing is out there that I can find. &*%#@$%! Good thing I signed on to iTunes today to buy some of my favorite old songs. I'll burn a CD to keep me occupied in the meantime.

Got sun today at a friend's pool, lounging around reading Vanity Fair and doing nothing else. Odd to do basically nothing for hours. I could get used to it.

One more week until that next poetry reading. I am excited about it. Must read through poems to see what I'll pick.

Made the really big decision to stop doing the zine. We can't devote the time to it. As it is, the last issue took us a long time to print, and we still got a page number wrong in the ToC. We're just not paying attention as we should. We'll print the ones we accepted and that will be it for now. Hope we can get back to it in a year or two. I really love reading others work and printing it.

More later. For now, time to pick some MP3 folders and forget about the death of The Basement while proofreading genetics.

Well, I did take some vacation time, but it was to throw things away that were hanging out in the attic. Not much of a writer's life. I would like to take some time to write. *sigh* Maybe in the fall.

The poetry group meeting was at that lit magazine/NJ poets roundup. I bought a copy of Exit 13, which seems much like The Unknown Writer, only put out once a year. We are going to twice a year, which will be more normal and give us a chance to actually have a magazine. Anyway, I heard lots of good poets and got talking with some. I might be able to set up a reading with one in the future, and I am going to call another person about another reading. (Damn, I wish I had new things to READ!!!) Then S and I went out to Panera's and talked about our writing and her book manuscript and our lives. I feel so guilty that I have not read her chapter drafts yet.

The freelance work keeps rolling in. I must finish this one job in the next 4 days, which is basically impossible. I know that I have a 320-pp. book coming in June, but aside from that there is nothing scheduled. I did get a raise from one publisher, which is great. Now if I could not spend some of the money coming in ...

On to more freelance and sending one of those poets some of my work. ...

Just finished editing my first fiction novel. Granted, it was a mystery involving gay vampires, but such is my leap into adult fiction. It was a light book -- good for an airplane ride to Vegas or a Mexican beach. It certainly gave me the bug to write a novel. There must be some editor out there who would accept something I write if there are markets for gay vampire novels. Not that there's anything wrong with gay vampire novels ....

I did firm up my poetry reading for June -- a town 2 hr away. Nice young woman is eager to have me read at a bookstore for her group. Very sweet. I still might have a local reading next week, although I really can't make it to that one even though I am committed to it. ... Too bad I am so distant from my own creative writing these days. I have even considered taking vacation days to focus just on writing, but for now I need the freelance money and the time to sort through my things and organize the place. I vow to get back to the writing as soon as I am settled again somewhere after this. I don't even have the energy to keep up with the 100 words site at all. I tried again this month and blech. Nothing. I had nothing to say after crafting one entry. It's like trying to ice a cake with crusted old frosting.

One good thing is that our May poetry meeting will be at a zine gathering nearby. G is working as editor at Now Culture now, so that's a good way to get in with other magazines and editors and writers, even though the markets are not quite my style of writing.

Next book to read: Getting Mother's Body

And I'm happy to say, no more spam since I cancelled all the old email, so that feature is no more. I'll drum up another feature.