gracenm

I sent in my two panel ideas to the Gettysburg Steampunk Festival. I wasn't going to go but when it didn't pan out with the Louisville panels. Trying for a little fun in a world on fire.

Today mom and I went out to meet my younger cousin for her birthday and went off to Trader Joe's. I wish I had one closer to me. Mine is 90 miles off in Columbus. Even here the closet one is about 35 minutes away. Picked up some cool things.

The writing zoom went well tonight too.


So for fannish 50 I have something from kitarella_imagines

i. Look at your last 10** fics.

ii. Make a list of their first lines of dialogue, with any necessary description. No cheating, I mean don't go through your fics looking for the best line of dialogue.

iii. Post them and we'll see if we can guess what the story will be about from the dialogue.

Kitarella also mentioned it's okay to go back further than the last 10 if the opening dialogue isn't that interesting.

Feel free to play along

( here's mine )

Just did laundry and finished my short story, steampunk 'day at the races' as a try for something in Louisville. Is it my best work? no. Will I have tons of competition? Some but who knows. Could use eyes on it.

I'm mostly here to do Music Monday and Women's history. Yes I missed saying something International Women's Day (I was beat) so today have the woman who started off my sabbatical research, someone I met in college and carried her story with me all these years Elizabeth Blackwell

As for music Monday, on the drive here the last radio station I go to (the one I listen to in this area) was having an International Women's Day fest by playing women artists (and mentioning iheartradio's women's history station) and in the next 1 1/2 hours they played 3 songs by women. 3...

So we can do better. THis monday I 'm taking a break from the list and let's just share songs written by, performed by women (however you care to define it)

( Women of Song )

Made it to PA. Forgot my damn onion sets for the parents. Guess I'll be growing onions... And I didn't even bid at fandomtrumpshate didn't realize it was that fast and I'm slightly salty about that. We didn't even get half a weekend to deal with this. Yes there were other days but jobs are a thing and so is time. Oh well. Oddly I don't really care that much. I can whip my money to charities on my own and there is always next year. Hope all my friends who DID manage to manage their time better than me got good requests and got the ones you were bidding on.

I have no thoughts for the writing side of things but I do have Ezio's character sheet done. Been noodling it (and letting it show me where the world building needs to happen) Ezio wasn't meant to be a central character but at this point I see 2 overarching story arcs and his is one. We meet him almost immediately after one of his dancers is murdered. I'd love opinions on this if you have time.

( Meet Ezio Zucca )


Open Calls

The Best Noir Sci-Fi-Horror of 2026 Mixing speculative fiction and police or military stories

The Gren-Wode Stories based in the world and legends of Robin Hood

Savagery on the Salty Seas, Volume 1. Maritime-themed horror has a high word count

Solar Punk Magazine April 2026 Window Works that stir readers with themes of defiance, change, and achievement

Otherside April 2026 Window Speculative fiction, poetry, and nonfiction by self-identified members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community

Stone’s Throw April 2026 Window SCHOOLS OUT (FOREVER)

Ten Manuscript Publishers Open to Submissions in March 2026

45 Themed Submission Calls and Contests for March 2026



From Around the web

The Official Manuscript Wish List Website a wishlist from agents

Putting in the Work (from the woman who runs that author zoom I go to)

The Opening Mystery: Creating Curiosity before the Inciting Incident

Keep the audience engaged as you keep secrets.

Five Quick Ways to Level Up Your Manuscript

How to Write a Gripping Psychological Thriller

Embodied Writing: How to Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Story

How to Get and Keep Amazon Reviews Without Getting Banned

Goals, Conflicts, & Stakes: Why Plots Need All Three

Authors Guild Expands “Human Authored” Certification Program to All U.S. Authors

3 Common Mistakes Committed by Self-Published Novelists

nothing from Betty this week. I wasn't the only one with a con this weekend.

My day started off perfectly with a massive charlie horse in my bad leg about 20 minutes before the alarm. The sartorius and the rectus femoris from the feel of it and it lasted about 15 minutes. I get them sometimes like that in the bad leg. It has ached like a toothache all day, which is exactly what you want when you'll be standing a chunk of the day and otherwise driving around.

Stuffed down the same boring free breakfast every hotel serves and head out. It started at 930. I got there 950 and got one of the last parking spots. Let me say this geeky stuff is so hot now. In the last five years, at least in my area, either you get there when the door opens or you might as well stay home. The line was insane and they said if you don't have a ticket come over to this door...one with no line. None of us moved. Surely that couldn't be right. They called us over again and this time I ran. We, the unprepared, got in WAY faster than those with tickets. ha.

You could barely move inside the place it was THAT crowded. There were five rows of vendors and then some all around this conference center. It was impressive as hell. I attended all the talks well most of them. It was bizarre, the whole day.

So James Willis (google Weird Willis) did two talks. I've mentioned him before. He comes to my library often. The first one was delayed a half hour because of the line to get in. It was all about the Loveland Frogman and chasing down the legend and where parts of it came from. His second talk was disrupted by the fire alarm. So out we all go. Turns out the dancers' dance routine had a fog machine. The detection system did not like this. So now I'm outside in the rain. Fun. When we got back in he continued the talk about various weird things.

I learned something from that talk the New Straitsville Mine Fire It predates the Centralia fire and is still burning and moonshiners used it to hide the evidence of the stills working because of the smoke. I'm like yep there's a story in this for me. They have a moonshine festival but it's memorial day weekend and I'm never around then.

Other talks included repitalian cryptids and all the weird crap in Wisconsin. I didn't know the stories about Lake Superior. I never could afford to go there when I lived in WI.

And the last one on Filipino aswang creatures but the tech kept failing which was a shame because he was a comic book artist who had illustrated his whole talk.

There were too many vendors to keep track of. I got some over priced coffee/tea and jewelry I don't need but wanted. Overpaid (by far) on a Squonk tote but a) like an idiot I forgot mine b) it was too damn cute.

I was super excited to find out that the Cinicinnati Shakespeare company is doing pericles as a space opera next month. I want to go. I could have gotten 50% o ff but forgot to scan the code. eh probably would have to have bought them immediately and I can't do that. I have other things going on so I need to check the calendar but I need to see this.

I came home right past the hotel I was at so I pulled off to find food and didn't want to drive down to that same strip mall. I opted to Taziki right across the hotel so I could jump right back on 71. Wrong choice. It was like the greek version of Chipolte. Passable but disappointing. Instead of the shaved gyro meat it was strips of lamb chunks, woefully underseasoned and tough.

Had to stop at the truck stop I usually do coming back from the renn fest. (there is only ONE rest stop in the entire 100 mile trip and that's 10 miles outside of Jackson. super helpful. The diner that looked like it was out of a 70's montegomery wards is now an IHOP (had I known I could have eaten there) and I fuel up on coffee at the truck stop which was...free? Really? I scampered off. I got lucky, the rain was only there for the last 10 miles of the trip.

Over all a nice day.

( here are some pictures )

The day started with a nightmare. I dreamed I was in my dad's workshop in his basement screaming at him that no one liked him and he was crying. Mom was yelling at me why did you do this and I said he was hitting my SiL and I lost it (to be clear he would never do that).

I go to work shocked everyone actually showed up except a few trapped by flooding (ah spring). It was going well...and then I got two emails (I wasn't even going to look at them but I needed to get any late submissions of work due today) about more cheating. And it IS more, in a different class. One has only heard about the girls bragging about it and doesn't want in trouble and the other came to speak to me since she was on campus and she said the same thing they're bragging about it. She doesn't know the student's name but from her description I know exactly who it is (another athlete)

Since I didn't catch them and there's no proof, I can't kick it up the chain. I DID tell the dean and I plan on talking to the heads of their departments to get some help. Not saying a word to them, just making them all put their phones in a box. They get them back at the end of the exam. No warning. Let's see what happens then. And other one hasn't been to lab...ever. Just has excuses and asks to make them up. Guess that's going away.

So now I'm an hour late getting home. Then the GI track says yeah you ain't leaving the bathroom. Once that fit was pitched I started getting ready and my sugar crashes out. Eye roll. Rocket tried to get in the bedroom and hide. FINALLY I'm out of the house. It's now after 230 and I haven't had lunch.

I have to go to Jackson to get a book from the library before it's sent back so I'll go to Sonic's. Get there. It's 240 and there are NINE cars in line. I nope out, stop for KFC and then go to Tim Horton's, the new one and this is the third time the guys on the window can't figure out a drink order (caramel machiatto, it's your standard fing menu) so I might be done with this place.

In the mean time the gas station's are changing their prices by 50 cents so I get my library book, race back across town to where they haven't got that message yet. Off I go. It's now 3 pm. I was supposed to BE here by now.

Luckily it was an easy drive and this Best Western has been recently redone. It's nice, clean...and the bathroom is an afterthought. You come in the door and immediately is a curtain pretending an alcove is the closet (at least there's a half dozen hangers not that I need them for 1 day) and the bathroom is SO small the toilet and tub nearly touch and the sink is in another part of the room outside the bathroom door.... BUT it has a fridge and microwave which the last two expensive hotels I've stayed at did not manage to have.

Everyone and their grandma is in the pool. Glad I didn't plan on that but this place is...well let's just say I love living in the country but I DO miss having options. I had researched, as I always do, best places to eat and planned to go to Dolsot Bistro as there is NO Korean food within 60 miles of me. I get to the strip mall and in it side by side is Korean, Chinese, Boba place, Indian place, juice joint and Phoenican/middle east food and a huge stand alone Mexican place. WOW. AND in the 2 miles from my hotel to hear it was nothing but food and strip malls including three other Korean places and a Greek place right across the street.

I got some goonmandu (fried dumplings that were amazing) and tofu doenjang dolsot (fine cut tofu, basically a sweetish red miso, veggies and a lightly fried egg on the rice. man crispy rice is a different, tastier experience (yes I'm not meant to have rice but...this is once in like 2 years for me as far as Korean food goes). Also they had a sliver of their pancakes on the kimchi tray and man I wish that app wasn't the price of dinner or I'd gotten that. It was amazing.

In theory I get breakfast free here and they have the daily specials written out. Every day is the same thing....ha. If it sucks we share a parking lot with the Waffle House.

And if something goes sideways with the festival I'll just drop down to Cincinnati and do fun stuff.


I did write something.

Title: She’s on the Ball
<
Summary: Angel has lost track of his belongings. At least Niffty knows what’s going on.

Rating: teen

Notes:Written for the allbingo prompt of scrapbooking and for spikesgirl58’s six words challenge. The words were Song, Finger, Unhealthy, Righteous, School, & Optimize and was inspired by Sarajayechan’s three sentence ficathon’s prompt of Hazbin Hotel, Niffty /& anyone, sometimes they forget that for all her chaotic murders she's the most organized housekeeper this side of the Pride Ring but I didn’t share it there because it was less Niffty than I think was wanted, gifting it here anyhow.

( Story above or under here )

Fannish 50 recs


Starsky's Flowers Starsky & Hutch

but turn it does The Murderbot Diaries

The Art of Selling Yourself Profitably Hazbin Hotel

Persistence Torchwood

Strikethrough Hazbin Hotel

Escape to the Beta Site Stargate Atlantis

Downward Spiral The Owl House

Letting Hope In Hazbin Hotel

Topless Hazbin Hotel

Episode 4: Right Here, Where I Don’t Belong UglyDolls

Born To Be Wild. 逆転裁判 | Gyakuten Saiban | Ace Attorney

Endings And Beginnings Torchwood

Watching The Professionals

listen carefully to the sound of your loneliness Helluva Boss

Gently Growing Together Inspector George Gently

The Truth Exposed. Stargate Atlantis

you were beautiful back then, but so lonely Hazbin Hotel

God Sends Meat And The Devils Send Cooks Hazbin Hotel

There's No Aftercare in Hell Hazbin Hotel

in heaven an angel is nobody in particular Hazbin Hotel