This coming Saturday, January 16th, Altered Fluid will participate in our semiannual visit to Hour of the Wolf radio program.  The show is broadcast live from 5-7 a.m. in New York on WBAI, 99.5 FM.  If that’s a little early for you, you can check out the broadcast recording which will be posted later in the day on the 16th.

This time up we are critiquing a story by Paul Berger.

**UPDATE 1/18: the MP3 of the show is now available HERE***

I was once told that everyone should make a New Year’s Resolution, as it is the one time in life that you can tell an outright lie to yourself and everyone around you and no one will think anything of it. I tend to do them every year and one of them always has to do with writing.

I didn’t need further proof that this is common – go to a New Years party with a bunch of writers and you’ll see just how common it is – so when fellow Altered Fluidian Eugene Myers sent around this “The Washington Post” article last month by Ann Patchett, and her realizations of how making yourself write every day actually resulted in writing every day and having higher output, it wasn’t a new concept for me. (I have to admit, though, that the first time I read the article, all I could think was “wow, this woman knows Edgar Meyer!)

In the article a yogi is credited with saying that if one picks a task and does it with consistency for the first 32 days of the year, then that sets the tone for the year. I agree with that, but I don’t think you have to limit it to the first 32 days of the year. Doing something every day is simple programming of the human body and mind. You can teach yourself to write every day by simply sitting down and writing every day. You can teach yourself a musical instrument by practicing every day. Professional football, basketball and other sports players practice every day. And even if you’re not that good at first, and maybe you don’t care for the task, you can still program yourself to do it. For proof of the latter, read about Andre Agassi and how his father decided Andre would be the best tennis player in the world and it became so. Also look at how many people, if they really thought about it, would admit to despising their 9-5 job, but they’ve programmed themselves to do it through repetition of the task and the telling themselves it has to be.

So, while I don’t think New Year’s Resolutions are incantations that guarantee success or failure, I’ll still make a few:

1. I will have Indian food at least twice a month. This one is easy!

2. Writing. I’ll write every day. Within reason. Some days I can’t write, due to travel, being sick, long days at work. But on the days that I can write I will. I’ve done it before, no sense not to keep it going.

3. Skydiving. Who wants to jump out of a plane with me? Kristen’s said many times that she won’t.

4. Exercise. I got into a good routine with running and Gyrotonic sessions last summer and fall, but work and the weather have dropped that to zero. No time like the present to pick it up again.

So. There. Promises I make to myself that may or may not turn out to be lies for the New Year. But, no worries. If they don’t take hold on January 1st, then I can start again on February 1st, or March 7th, or “The Ides of March”, or whenever.

Have a great Twenty-Ten!

A few months ago I attended a writer’s conference in Manhattan. At said conference there was a panel, and upon this panel sat an agent who spoke of how he likes to work with authors, how new authors are his particular favorites, how he likes the unique voice.   How he enjoys the personal connection with a writer.  I spoke with him briefly after the panel, he asked me to send him a query letter, I agreed.

This week I received the rejection email from the agent. It began “Dear Mr. Fitzgerald…”

I re-read my query numerous times, thinking I’d made the mistake.  But, no, my name was clearly stated in all of the materials, in the email return address, everywhere.

In addition to getting my name COMPLETELY incorrect, he also misspelled the title of my novel. I guess being an agent means you don’t have to pay attention to the details.

Next!

Saturday morning was Altered Fluid’s fifth outing on the Saturday morning radio show Hour of the Wolf.  While the process of critiquing a story is fairly rote for us anymore, doing it live on the radio does provide quite a thrill.  This time through we went at Rajan’s story “School Bus” and were as gentle with it and him as we thought necessary.

For those of you who didn’t feel like getting up at 5 a.m. to listen live, you can download an audio file of the broadcast from the Hour of the Wolf website, June 27th broadcast.

Senses Five Press has posted my interview with Paul Tremblay, from the new issue of Sybil’s Garage, on their website. Check it out here.

Sybil’s Garage #6 has hit the streets.  A lot of great ficti0n in this issue, along with my interview with author extrodinaire Paul Tremblay.

Fellow Altered Fluidian Kris Dikeman has a story up for the storySouth Million Writers Award.  Her story, “Nine Sundays in a Row” was published online by Strange Horizons.  It’s honestly one of my favorite stories from the past two years from any market and any author.  Truly a wonderful bit of storytelling.

Check out the story at Strange Horizons, and vote.

Senses Five Press posted the TOC for the next issue of Sybil’s Garage.  While not listed in the post, I have an interview with author Paul Tremblay in this issue.

The fiction and poetry are as follows, and I can say having read most of the pieces that this is going to be one of the best issues to date.

Poetry
Liz Bourke    “The Girl”
Donna Burgess    “Ashes”
Lyn C. A. Gardner    “God’s Cat”
Alex Dally MacFarlane    “The Wat”
Susannah Mandel    “Metamorphic Megafauna”
Tracie McBride    “An Ill Wind”
Kristen McHenry    “Museum”
Jaime Lee Moyer    “One by Moonlight ”
Daniel A. Rabuzzi    “Backsight”
Michel Sauret     “Brick Wall Giants”
Michel Sauret     “Son of Man”
J.E. Stanley    “City of Bridges”
Sonya Taaffe    “Skiadas”
Marcie Lynn Tentchoff    “Sun-Kissed”

Fiction
Rumjhum Biswas    “Mother’s Garden”
K. Tempest Bradford    “Élan Vital”
Autumn Canter    “Day of the Mayfly”
Becca De La Rosa    “Not the West Wind”
Eric Del Carlo    “Come the Cold”
Jason Heller    “The Raincaller”
Paul Jessup    “Heaven’s Fire ”
Vylar Kaftan    “Fulgurite”
Keffy R. M. Kehrli    “Machine Washable”
Sean Markey    “Waiting for the Green Woman”
James B. Pepe    “I am Enkidu, his Wild Brother”
Simon Petrie    “Downdraft”
Genevieve Valentine    “The Drink of Fine Gentlemen Everywhere”
Stephanie Campisi    “Drinking Black Coffee at the Jasper Grey Café”
Toiya Kristen Finley    “Eating Ritual”
Donald Norum    “An Old Man Went Fishing on the Sea of Red”

My writing group, Altered Fluid, has started a group blog.

The first post is by your’s truly and can be read here.

I’ll admit it, I worry about money as much as anyone else.  While I do make stupid purchases from time to time — I can’t for the life of me remember the last time I used that stainless steel hand warmer I bought last year — I for the most part try to watch my spending and make sure I get my money’s worth.

So, here’s a shot of a recent rejection note I got in a self-supplied, self-addressed and stamped envelope. Come on!  I wasted a stamp on this?  Perhaps including post cards with submissions would be a better idea.  I could even put little YES or NO check boxes on the back, you know, to help them out.

No way did I get my forty-one -cents worth.