3- maybe I should stop pretending this is horror

Dear Alicia Adams,

Thank you for sending us "Rooster". I've reviewed the story and decided not to purchase it. It's very well written (I like the dry terseness) but, perhaps, not horrific enough for us. Please consider us in the future, however, as I enjoyed your writing and the evident control you've mustered.

Thanks for submitting, and I hope my comments have been at least a tiny bit helpful.

3- maybe I should stop pretending this is horror

Dear Alicia Adams,

Thank you for sending us "Rooster". I've reviewed the story and decided not to purchase it. It's very well written (I like the dry terseness) but, perhaps, not horrific enough for us. Please consider us in the future, however, as I enjoyed your writing and the evident control you've mustered.

Thanks for submitting, and I hope my comments have been at least a tiny bit helpful.

2

We at Necrotic Tissue received your submission: "Rooster". After
considered review by our editorial staff we have decided not to publish
your story.

Interesting slice of troubled Americana, but not the type of horror we
want to publish. Even with flash fiction, we look for characters that we
can sympathize with and a more developed plot. This is more of a
vignette and lacks the tension we seek.


Please also take a few minutes and log our response time at
www.duotrope.com. We work hard to respond to writers in a timely manner,
which allows them to submit again to another market if not selected for
publication. Reporting response times helps us attract writers and helps
writers make good decisions about where they want to submit.

Please come join us at:

The Haunt, Horror Mall's very own forum
(http://www.horror-mall.com/haunt/NecroticTissue)

MySpace (www.myspace.com/necrotictissuemag)

Stay Awhile

If you haven't read Catherine Hein's chilren's story in the LA Times, I really recommend doing so. It warmed my heart.

Dinosaur comic

Please let me direct your attention to this dinosaur comic! If you're looking at this in the future, then it's the one for April 17th, and it's about euphemisms. It came to me in synchronicity.

I am feeling really incapable. I need to do something to make me feel smart again or like a good person again. Where are my cats? I need cats!

The Death of Beep

Everything as it's meant to be.

Tibet Tibet Tibet

I should take this blog seriously.

Last night I went to Zocalo's John Fante celebration at the Hammer. I saw Fante's kids. Christa talked to them. And everyone flirted with Catherine. Haha.

I decided to go to China, Tibet, and possibly Japan (to see Fadi!) this summer. I'll also be in Washington and Oregon. Omar's going to Lebanon and Egypt. So basically we won't see each other all summer.

Finally, Tyler Dilts is having a reading for his soon-to-be novel, A King of Infinite Space. It's on May 8th, and you all should go. His blog page is listed on the right of my page, so go there for details if you want them now, but I might be posting them later. =)

Magic

The most horrifying and amazing thing just happened. I was sitting here at my computer, reading and updating my facebook status. I'm sitting at the kitchen table. Very close is the bird cage. Thre are two birds in it. One is a finch and one is a rosy bourke parakeet. The finch is named Beep and the bourke is Burt. My mom was vacuuming the seeds out of the cage. I was talking about how great it was the Beep and Burt were friends. I was talking about how much I loved Beep. He's a spunky little thing. As I was watching, Beep got sucked up into the vacuum.

It took a long time to get him out. Blood and dust and feathers. He fell to the ground, motionless. I saw taht his eyes were moving, and I tried to pick him up, but his head neck wouln't hold his head up, and I got scared. My mom picked him up and held him in her hand, cradled there. After a while she had to get back to cleaning. I held him in my room, cradled in my hand. I was crying like a fool, like I always do when an animal is dying in my hands, which has been way too often. The first time it happened, it was our bunny. I was twelve. My mom told me not to cry or I'd scare him. So I felt really bad crying in front of Beep. I calmed myself down. Then I remembered a psychic once telling me that I was a "healer." I know it's superstitious and probably silly, but you do what you can when you can. I've made myself feel better by believing that I can heal myself. I talked to Beep. I told him, "I'm going to try to heal you now." He was so still. I focused my healing energy on him (knowing this sounds crazy), but he was moving a little. Greg came home (step dad), and my mom came into my room to find Beep. He struggled in her hands. He was energetic. We put him in his cage with Burt, and he started flying around. He's sitting next to Burt right now, although he's shaking. He might still die. There's a big cut on his neck, one below his wing. He's shaking and probably has internal damage. But if he's going to die, he'd rather die next to Burt. And while I'm really sad to watch him shake on his perch right now... I feel like this is how he'd want to go.

Violence

I got into Phantom Lips, which is good. Been having body issues over facebook incident. I don't have them all too often, which is good. I've been flaking on my antidepressants because I'm destructive, and I'm remembering what little these-aren't-really-for-anything tears are like. Little stinging things that make me feel like myself. I'm not myself when I don't cry a little, and I NEVER cry on my antidepressants. Not even when I'm really upset about something. I'm writing a story. I'm about nine pages in. It's going to be long. That's what she said.

I've also been nerding out by making just-for-fun power points. If you haven't seen them yet, and you have the technology, drop me a line. Dang, tell me to start taking my pills again. It's like drinking. Like the buzz before drunk and not fun anymore. I should stop writing blogs when I'm tired. What I'm starting to realize is that I don't think the way other people think. I used to think that everyone thought the same things, but nobody talked about them. When I started to talk about them, people would get this weird contorted faces. It's just me. And that's pretty lonely.