Tag: personal

Change of title

- Stacy 1 Comment

You might notice some changes happening in my bio below my posts, on my About Me page, and on my social media sites. I’ve already mentioned it on Facebook, but I thought I’d better note it here, as well. For the last three years, I’ve been editorial director of Tu Books, focusing on the editorial side. Now my responsibilities have expanded to include marketing and sales, and so my title has changed to publisher to reflect that change in duties.

What this means for writers: I won’t have as much time to accept new submissions, so from time to time our submissions guidelines will reflect that we’ve closed to unagented submissions. We did this over the holidays, and haven’t yet reopened those submissions; I need time to catch up on what we’ve already received, including a nice large number of New Visions Award submissions. So keep writing, and watch for when we open for submissions periodically. This will allow me to concentrate my editorial time on the books we’ve already contracted, with concentrated windows during which I’ll seek new voices.

While this is a big change for me, for the purpose of writers things shouldn’t change too much.

Daily leeway

- Stacy

I really love my job. A lot. I’ve been really busy at it for the last month or so, working toward getting Fall books out the door and working on acquiring/editing the books I’ve acquired for the next couple seasons. But what about outside of work? I’ve been thinking lately that part of my life isn’t so interesting.

Today I was hanging out with a friend and he asked me—my memory is fuzzy, but I believe in the context of me talking about yet another TV show I’ve watched—just what do I do after work. Maybe it’s because I was feeling like I don’t have much of a life—I’m still looking for my niche here in this city in many ways—I was a little embarrassed to admit that if I don’t have somewhere to be, I just go home and veg, watching a lot of TV. The answer would have involved WoW if I remembered to play anymore. I’ve gotten out of the habit these last few months.

But I’ve been thinking about it and I don’t know that I have much to be embarrassed about. Here’s my day: Out the door to work at 8:30, or even earlier if I have trash to carry down with me on my way out.

An hour commute; at work by 9:30. Work all day, yadda yadda. I officially get off at 5:30, but I generally don’t leave right away unless I have somewhere to go in the early evening. I usually end up working till at least 6, if not 7, because I’ve just got so much to do. A week ago Friday, I was at work till 10 pm because I had a project I was trying to finish (and ended up having to finish it Monday because I made myself go home at 10 with just 2 or 3 things left to finish).

But on a normal night I might get home, after errands/taking a walk/ etc., at 9 or 10 pm most weeknights! And it really IS okay to watch a little TV at ten o’clock at night. Or eight or nine.

That’s only one kind of weekday evening. Other nights I might leave early from work to attend a book event of some sort—a signing or reading or something. I’ll still get home just as late, but at least I’ve been out real-life socializing in the meantime. Or hang out with friends feeling guilty about how much TV I watch (not what the friend said—just my own thoughts in relation to the conversation).

Weekends are more varied. Some weekends I might stay in and marathon Doctor Who. Some I might be out on a bike ride in the afternoon and watching a movie with friends or playing WoW in the evening (that’s the plan for this weekend, only the video games will be on one of my friend’s consoles, not a MMORPG). Some I might be gathering for Korean barbecue or a movie. I’d like to start getting out with my camera in the late afternoons to practice my photography (I’m getting rusty) but haven’t really done it enough yet. Then there are the weekends that are consumed with mundanities like errands at Target and laundry.

So perhaps my life isn’t so boring as I think it is (except for the errands at Target and laundry). It’s just that I am busy enough in the weekdays that I have to remember to allow myself leeway in the evenings. So if you see me tweeting about yet another TV show, now you know why I do it.

Busy is good, but bad hair days are the pits

- Stacy 2 Comments

I’ve been busy finishing an edit for an author, working on a proofread, and getting submission packet critiques back to the authors who have been waiting for them for what probably feels like an inordinate amount of time. If you’re waiting on me for a critique, hopefully I’ll be catching up to you in the queue soon. It’s been so good to have work to be busy with — the bills are actually getting paid this month! If you’re a freelancer, you know what I mean — you start to panic when the workload starts to decrease, because who knows whether it will increase again?

But I’m taking a break this evening. I have a confession: A few nights ago, I got it into my head that if I just trimmed up the little wisps on my hair around my face, I wouldn’t have to dip into my meager funds to pay for a haircut. I mean, I’d rather pay the power bill and have groceries, you know? But the scissors slipped, and I ended up trying to even it out, and… well, awful story short, I think I have given myself a mullet. It’s bad, guys.

So I’m off in a few hours to go have someone fix it — and yes, I’m paying for it, don’t worry. It’s going to probably end up pretty short. Which is *really* scary for me, because short hair on me usually just emphasizes how much weight I’ve gained in my adulthood. I’ve picked out a few pictures off the internet that might work, but those pictures are always of really skinny models and I’m just not sure how they’ll look *on me*, and I want as professional and modern a look as possible.

If you have any ideas for cute short hair, especially medium-length hair that’s relatively short in the front (here’s an example of what I mean by that, or perhaps the one on the right here), by all means, please give me a link in the comments (but do it by 4:30 MST, because I’m heading out to get it all chopped off after that).

Spaces still left for worldbuilding seminar

- Stacy

We still have about 11-15 spaces left for the worldbuilding seminar this Saturday, so if you were thinking  you might come but weren’t sure if there’d still be room for you, be assured that we’ve got plenty of room. If Paypal was the trouble, at this point, just bring your check ($45 for an individual, $35 if you’re in a group of 5 or more) with you to the library, but still be sure to email my intern, Chersti, at cjstapley AT gmail DOT com with your registration information to let her know you’ll be coming.

Hope to see you there, and for those of you not local, I’m still working on the online workshop idea. Last week was rather slow on that end, however, due to a family emergency and my own asthma problems–I’m still waiting to hear how my ten-year-old niece is doing (thank you all for your thoughts and prayers–she’s doing better, and every time they do a test, like taking her off the heart bypass machine, she continues to improve, but we’re still just waiting to hear about a number of tests that I’m not sure that they’ve been able to do yet). I’m trying to get that ox back out of the mire from last week, which means getting several critiques back to people who have been very patient as I’ve been dealing with other things. Thank you all for being so kind and thinking of my niece–between all of my friends, and all of my siblings’ and cousins’ and aunts’ friends, I think there must be thousands of people thinking of her and praying for her. Thanks, everyone.