OK, cool.

I hate smooshing it, anyway.

First pass pages for Matty have arrived. Layout looks good. Proofing.

This is the annoying bit. Word by word....

(pssst! Deb! I sent something to your e-mail addy.)

Heh. Got it, Jilli, and we have twice backflung, and all is of the wellness.

The Drabble, it burns like hygiene!

His ice-blue eyes burned with the barely-contained rage of his barbarian heritage as he pressed the cold steel blade, nicked by a thousand bloody battles, against the soft city-man's flabby throat. His grim visage snarled, tiger-like, and each muscle clenched, bulging with fury unbound by the weak laws of the lowland civilizations. Cravenly trembling, the innkeeper cowered before him, damp hands wringing anxiously.

"Too much of your piss-weak city ale have I drunk, and yet not enough that your low-lander tricks can deceive me!"

Cromagh fiercely shook his lion-like black mane from his burning eyes.

"Where is your cursed privy, dog?"

One word over. Pah! I defy your soft literary conventions!

Joe, I think you read too much Robert E. Howard growing up. You could take over for him.

suhNERK! Joe, you know what's scary? Pretty much all fantasy reads like that to me. I can't tell straight from parody anymore. And that was a brilliant drabble; add some naked dancing girls and unveiled antifeminism, and you've got Gor.

Grrrrr, Gor. Thag smash Gor.

At last, contest results! And really, they're not half bad.

I was tied for 14th out of 35 entries in my category, which sounds terrible (OK, it really sounds merely mediocre, but I have high expectations of myself), but the scores are very bunchy at the top. The highest score was 149/150, and I got 141.5. (Each entry had three judges, and they dropped the lowest and averaged the other two.) In the best hero category, I was tied for 3rd with 19/20, but only the first place entry from each category advanced to the finals.

This is the contest where I rewrote my first chapter from scratch over the course of a week, had a few people look at it the next week, and then sent it out. It's been revised since, I think for the better, so it'll be interesting to see how I do in the two contests I entered with it post-revision. I got consistently high scores on all areas, but especially characterization, setting, and style. I got very few comments (as seems to be the way with high-scoring entries), but I'm getting an ego boost from:

This is a very well written entry. You've created strong characters and set up compelling conflicts. Best of luck!

You did an excellent job creating Jack. He's strong yet sensitive to the needs of others. I fell in love with him quite easily. Well done!

The writing is vivid, alive, and fresh.

I'm definitely intrigued. The synopsis reveals a depth of story arc unusual for this time period.

I'm looking forward to seeing this in print.

It's not quite what I hoped for when I entered, but I think I'll preen a bit nonetheless.

Wow, Susan. That sounds great! Those are all really good comments, and several in areas where you've felt you've been strong. So good on you! This should be good affirmation. And that's great about the 3rd in hero creation -- you've really been pleased with your writing of Jack, so that's great to hear back that you really are on the right track with him.