PSA of the Day

On October 14, 2015March 9, 2019 By PatriciaIn Coincidence, Important Stuff, Technology, WritingLeave a comment

deadmac New conspiracy theory: My beloved but geriatric 17 inch MacBook Pro, which essentially become a desktop machine after I got an Air, died last night. Apple sent an email this morning about the new iMac, released yesterday. Coincidence? Joke’s on them. There’s no replacement in the budget for the foreseeable future.

However, the good news is—EVERYTHING IS BACKED UP. Some of it in three places. Take the time to run back-ups, folks. Better yet, find a way to back-up automatically and regularly. Back-ups lessen the pain. This has been a public service announcement.

In Search of Perfection and Nitrous Oxide

On April 30, 2015 By PatriciaIn On Writing, WritingLeave a comment

I think I wrote the perfect paragraph today.

It was short but concise. It had imagery, emotion, depth, universality. The rhythm of the words was so exquisite it hurt. The prose flowed exactly as it should; it could be no other way.

There may even have been a whiff of Proust’s madeleines about it.

Which is completely inappropriate, because I head-wrote it while in the dentist’s chair and deeply under the influence of nitrous oxide. I can’t remember a word of it.

I thought about requesting some nitrous-to-go in the off chance I could find it again, but any other time I’ve asked, they laughed like I was joking or something.

Bastards.

Now I go back to slogging through the shitty first draft of my current work-in-progress and wondering why I do this writing thing— or even think I can.

I did get a blog post out of it. And, I can once again chew with the right side of my mouth, so there is that.

But, oh man. That paragraph, those words…

Because the Night

On March 21, 2015March 9, 2019 By PatriciaIn Blatant Self Promotion, Books, Fiction, Story Sales, WritingLeave a comment

Cover image from “Nøkken” (1904) by Theodor Kittelsen.

This morning, editor C. M. Muller announced the Table of Contents for the inaugural volume of Nightscript, an anthology slated to be published annually. I am honored to have my story, “The Cuckoo Girls,” included in this amazing line-up.

“Everything That’s Underneath” by Kristi DeMeester
“Strays” by Gregory L. Norris
“In His Grandmother’s Coat” by Charles Wilkinson
“The Cuckoo Girls” by Patricia Lillie
“The Sound That the World Makes” by David Surface
“Below the Falls” by Daniel Mills
“The Keep” by Kirsty Logan
“She Rose From the Water” by Kyle Yadlosky
“Animalhouse” by Clint Smith
“Tooth, Tongue, and Claw” by Damien Angelica Walters
“Momma” by Eric J. Guignard
“The Trees Are Tall Here” by Marc E. Fitch
“A Quiet Axe” by Michael Kelly
“The Death of Yatagarasu” by Bethany W. Pope
“The Cooing” by John Claude Smith
“A Knife in My Drawer” by Zdravka Evtimova
“On Balance” by Jason A. Wyckoff
“Learning Not to Smile” by Ralph Robert Moore
“Fisher and Lure” by Christopher Burke
“The Death of Socrates” by Michael Wehunt

I am truly looking forward to getting my hands on this. Not for my story—I know how that turns out—but for the chance to read new work by some of my favorite writers.

Nightscript, Volume 1 will be available in October, 2015. In the meantime, you can keep up-to-date by following Nightscript on Facebook.