Progress report

I have to admit I've been a little lax this week. But, like all slackers, I have an excuse. My laptop was stolen  and I had to replace it, download umpteen hours of software on to it, and then figure out where I left off. I had backed up my stuff up to two days before the theft, so I only lost a few pieces -- a journal entry, a poem, a piece for Red Room, and about a day's worth of novel work. I have since rewritten most of it, so I'm in pretty good shape. The scary part is that there is someone out there with all of my writing. I hope the thief just cleaned off the hard drive before he got rid of it (I know it was a he).

As a result I've learned some lessons: put my name and contact data on every piece of hardware I own, backup continuously (I'm now using Mobile Me religiously), and install a security system on every traveling computer (I have LoJack on my new laptop).

But all is not entirely bad in the writing department. This weekend The Survivor's Chronicles, an online zine published four of my poems: My Jazzman, Mania, The Dreaded Question, and Buddha. I may have posted them here, but if you haven't read them, please visit: http://thesurvivorchronicle.wordpress.com/ and check them out. I'd really appreciate your comments.

And, one more thing for today. A few posts ago I stated I wouldn't post poems here anymore for fear of being unable to get them published elsewhere. Many publications these days do not want previously published work and they consider publishing in personal blogs and websites as being published. However,   Berkeley Literary Press seems to give authors a little breathing space. It states:

For the BLR, “published work” means published in print in North America, or published on the Internet in electronic journals, e-zines, academic websites, and other “public” or “official” websites. Works posted on personal blogs or websites will be considered on a case-by-case basis. We ask that authors be honest about web postings. (If a work is discovered to have been posted or published elsewhere--and not openly acknowledged by the author in advance--we will remove it from consideration.)


It would be great if all publications would follow suit.


http://thesurvivorchronicle.wordpress.com