My workload, let me show you it

It is time yet again for my current to-do-list. Yes, those with breaths bated may now release them and take in the sweet taste of air. So, I have some things that need doing, and as always a few are more pressing than others. Let's take a look, shall we?

Things To Do Sooner than Later

• Review City Slab #11 for The Fix
• Review Lace and Blade edited by Deborah J. Ross
• The next set of comics for The Outback Guide, these ones based off the first three chapters of Sandra McDonald's The Stars Down Under
• Catch up on MyLifeComics, because I'm getting behind very fast and I'd like to be either on schedule or ahead (though that last bit is more of a fantasy than ever a reality)
• Get a haircut
• Renew my car insurance
  

Things that, Unfortunately, Must Wait their Turn

• The Novel, oi
• Rewriting "The Lady of Jeweled Dreams," as per my WOTF critique
• Um, basically doing any fiction writing
• Videogaming, as much as I love it and even just bought a new game for the DS I need to take a break because it does eat up a good chunk of my time at night

I always feel like I'm forgetting something here, but who knows. Do I need to start making a list of things to add to my to-do-list? Ugh.

Gah, too much

Well, I can't avoid making a to-do-list. Clearly, it is the only sensible way I can actually think about--and see--what I have to get done. So, here it is, in all its glory:

• Review The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
• Review Issue 13 of Electric Velocipede for The Fix
• Read and crit a short story
• Rewrite "Firefoot"
• Rewrite "Pigment"
• Get today's quota of 500 words done
• Finish secret comic thing, deadline being before December 1st
• More 200 Sad Comics? Meh, we'll see
  
• Start the end of this week's MyLifeComics as well as beginning of the following week's because...
• Philcon 2007 this weekend, which I need to get mentally prepared for
• Grocery shopping
• Car needs an oil change
• I'm sure there's more, but I need to get to work on some of these thingies so...
  

Like start X-mas shopping

Here's what I did for NaWriMo today: 1,765 words

I was going to make a to-do-list, but now I don't want to. Weird? Just know, I have things to do.

The latest to-do-list

Things to do that probably should be done more soonish than later:

• Review Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress 22
• Review The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
  
• Review Analog, December 2007 for The Fix
  
• Draw Friday's comic for MyLifeComics

Things to do that probably have no rush on them. No, scratch that. They have no rush on them:

• Cross the 30K mark on the novel
• Review Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton
• Review Killswitch by Joel Shepherd (but I should probably read the second book first before tackling this third one, eh?)
• Rewrite "Pigment"
• Rewrite "Nineteen and a Half Cats"
  

Things to do...

...eventually.

• Finish reviewing ASIM: Best of SF for Tangent Online
• Review Scar Night by Alan Campbell
• Write the last agonizingly stressful scene of "After Effects" and give it a much better title
• Re-write "Pigment" with a slant toward cults
• Re-write "Nineteen and a Half Cats" whenever it gets back to me
• Send out stories that have been sitting around since Monday; gather dust, they will not
• Post about the thing that I'm not ready to talk about yet
• Do my laundry
• Take my car in for an oil change and renew my insurance policy
• Buy Flight: Volume 4
• Clean my apartment, hah?

I think that's all for now. Er, well probably not. There's a bajillion things to do, and only twenty-four hours in a day. Shame I spend most of them lying around. Oh wells...

Please forgive me

Please forgive me, blessed blog, but it's been nearly two months since my last confession to-do-list. I guess, for a while there, I was keeping it all in my head. I don't know how I did it, I really don't. I mean, seventy-five percent of the reason of having a blog is to list shtuff that needs to get done (the remaining twenty-five percent is spent on cat macros and misdirected hate). And with that said...

• Review Gradisil by Adam Roberts (I finished reading it last week)
• Review Prime Codex edited by Lawrence M. Schoen and Michael Livingston (only a few stories left to read)
• Review Ragamuffin by Tobias S. Buckell (very much looking forward to starting this one)

Hmm, thought I had more to do than that. Well, of course write more stories and draw more comics, but I no longer add those to the lists since they've become so routine.

Pi time

Happy Pi Day, everyone!

Speaking of mathematical constants, here's a list of a number of things I need to do:

• Review Robotika by Alex Sheikman and Joel Jason O'Chua, which should be up in a few days or so.
  
• Read and review Dreadful Skin by Cherie Priest.
• Read and review Brasyl by Ian McDonald.
• Er, try and do a Greenhorn comic to make up for the one I didn't do this week. Maybe. We'll see.
  
• Finish a story (either "The Morning Gift" or "The Lady of Jeweled Dreams") to submit to the MZB's Sword and Sorceress 22 anthology.
• Work on rewrite of "The Farrah Job."
• Hey, how about I not waste all my time playing Rogue Galaxy and trying to make every stupid sword from every stupid item I find? Hey, how about that? Huh?
  
• Continue work on shh secret project.
• I've run out of coffee creamer. ::cries like a loon::
• Gawd, I'm no longer even listing things to do here, just complaining off the cuff.
• What's with the weather lately?
• I want a kitty cat.
  

In other news, got a 16-day "after careful consideration, we have decided not to accept..." from The Town Drunk. Bah! This story keeps getting close at every place I send it. Either that means it has a chance elsewhere or I need to sit down with it and re-read the sucker. I'll try one more place for now. I'm a masochist, I guess.

Ack, LOST is on!

Going to ComicCon!

Well, "The Morning Gift" is on hold for now while I figure out what I'm even trying to do with the thing. I've got my characters and I've got my history in there, but the plot is fuzzy and unfocused. Also, I'll be attending ComicCon tomorrow in New York, which means I'll probably be mentally exhausted for the remainder of the weekend. But yay, ComicCon! The guest list is insane and if I meet even just 2% of the people I want to meet I will be quite pleased with the experience.

As usual, I have lots of things I need to do. What's that sound? Is it bullets lining up and indenting themselves? Why, yes! It is! Time for a to-do-list.

Things To Do Soon or My Head Will Splode:

• Review Farthing, Issue 5 for Tangent
• Review Justina Robson's Keeping It Real
• Ink next week's MyLifeComics
• Actually draw the next Greenhorn because I've run out of inventory
• Continue work on a shhhhhhhhhhh secret project that I can't talk about yet
• Finish reading chapters of a friend's latest novel
• Sleep

This past week I finished two stories, rewrote another one, reviewed galleys for "Sonorous" for Apex Digest #9, and managed to find time for some Rogue Galaxy. I think if my head does explode, it's at least warranted.

Nice doggie...

---

Things I need to do (I'm OCDDDDDDD, I make to-do-lists just to stay busyyyyyyy):

• Finish the other three parts for the upcoming Greenhorn series
• Review Fast Forward I
• See Children of Men
• Beat Suikoden V, even if it means not collecting every single character
• Laundry
• Possibly re-organize my bookshelves

Now, isn't all that exciting?

The review queue

Queue is a funny word. Killer in Scrabble, but if you look at it too long your brain begins to fritz out. Anyways, even though I've put a lot of my reviewing tasks aside for the time being I still have books that need reviewing. At the moment, I'm just reading some books that have been on my shelf for a bit, waiting, waiting, waiting. But here's what I'll eventually get to in the first few months of 2007:

• The Flock by James Robert Smith
• The Awakened City by Victoria Strauss
• Fast Forward I edited by Lou Anders
• Farthing, Issue #5

And that's pretty much it for now. I discovered some vanity press novels that Damon had slipped me along with actual real novels (bastard!), but I doubt I'll ever even open them. It gets cold up here in North Jersey, though, so they'll be at least good for burning. Wow, I'm the nicest. I'm sure other books are coming in, and there might be the occasional pop-up review (a la Ysabel), but for the most part that should be it.

Books not for review

Not every book I read gets reviewed. Sometimes it's nice to just read something, put it back on the shelf, and move on to another item. Here are some of those books:

• Map of Bones by James Rollins
• The Light Ages by Ian R. MacLeod
• Mélusine by Sarah Monette
• Inkspell by Cornelia Funke
• Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein

In actual reviewing news, I hope to have some things written up for the latest books by David Drake, Charles Stross, and David Eddings. I finished my review of Jigsaw Nation (very good!) the other day and submitted it to SFReader. It's a bit long, but hopefully they'll take it...

Upcoming reviews!

Another update on what I'll be reviewing soon! Of course, not in this order.

• The Sword Review, May 2006 issue
• Absolute Uncertainty by Lucy Sussex
• The Fortress of Glass by David Drake
• Four and Twenty Blackbirds by Cherie Priest
• Dreams and Visions edited by M. Jerry Weiss and Helen S. Weiss
• Jigsaw Nation edited by Edward J. McFadden and E. Sedia
• Dark Days by Steve Niles
• Ending an Ending by Danny Birt
• The Forest King: Woodlark's Shadow by Dan Mishkin & Tom Mandrake
• The Flock by James Robert Smith

Whew, lots to read!

Upcoming reviews...

Well, it's about that time again (What time? you ask. What are you even writing about?). The time when I make a list of what reviews I'll be doing soon. Duh. And hopefully in this order.

• Aberrant Dreams, #7, Spring 2006
• American Gods by Neil Gaiman
• Timeweb by Brian Herbert
• Ending an Ending by Danny Birt
• The Dreamer by Matthew G. McMillan
• The Forest King: Woodlark's Shadow by Dan Mishkin & Tom Mandrake
• Hammered by Elizabeth Bear
• The Flock by James Robert Smith

Also, if I ever get unlazy enough I'd like to write up some comic book reviews and movie reviews. We'll see. I am lazy though. Well, not that lazy.

Coming out at the beginning of June will be my story "Chance on Catella" in AlienSkin Magazine. I shall have a link for you all soon enough, don't you worry yourselves too much.

Other than that, still writing away and waiting for the slush gods to take pity upon me and accept the virgin sacrifices I offer in return for world domination and a few more print publications. So say we all...

Review queue!

For those interested, here is my list of upcoming reviews:

1. S.H. Viehl's Rebel Ice (will be posted later today)
2. Brainchild, A Collection of Artifacts (will be posted later today)
3. Hugh Cook's The Wizards and the Warriors (will be posted by this weekend)
4. Heidi Cyr's X and Y, and Other Like Stories (will be posted by this weekend)
5. The Sword Review, Issue 12 March 2006 (will be posted when the issue is complete)
6. Hugh Cook's The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers
7. David Drake's Surface Action
8. Cat Collins's Sleeping Dragons
9. Robin Paige's Death at Daisy's Folly
10. Dan Simmons's The Fall of Hyperion

And that's all for the moment. I'm sure more books are coming in, but I can only read these so fast! Stay tuned for further updates!

In case anyone cares...

Here's my "To read" list in the order that they will hopefully be read:

- Brett Renwick's Wired For Chaos
- R.A. Salvatore's The Two Swords
- Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers
- George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones
- Cat Collins' Sleeping Dragons
- Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness
- Terry Prachett's Going Postal
- China Mieville's Perdido Street Station
- L.E. Modisett, Jr.'s The Infinity Artifact

You'd be surprised at how many of the "classics" I haven't read. I'm coming in quite late to Martin's series, and although I've been spoiled a few times already on it, I'm excited to see what all the talk has been about. I have no real excuse for not reading Le Guin's Hugo-winning novel. And China, well, I'm just beginning to enjoy his work.

I've told myself no more books until these are all done. I doubt that will happen. Plus, I'm reviewing miscellaneous items for Tangent Online.