More bitch, bitch, bitch on my part.

My new editor claims the term "war budget" is a technical error, even though I specifically start by explaining why I use the term. Editor claim: military spending post 911 above the pre-911 base lines is war spending, but anything below that is defense spending:

Because the U.S. did not engage in any wars prior to 911? Or because every single war we engaged in before 911 was defensive? After all there were no claims that any of our wars post-911 were defensive wars...

Is this something you feel strongly about? It seems like semantics to me, but I'm not really invested in the topic.

You have to weigh how far he's going to dig his heels in versus how far you want to.

Well one point of bitching here is to keep it perspective. But "defense" budget definitely has connotations I don't want to live with. No coincidence that the "war department" was renamed the "defense department" when the U.S. starting first increasing its military budge. I'll settle for "military budget".

I'm done with another chapter of revision. I've been busy and it's slow going for a number of reasons. That puts me about a bit under a third of the way through in terms of word count. Not that this is a final revision, I'm just incorporating changes I want to make at this point and marking off comments that beta readers have made to indicate I've at least read and considered them whether I act on them or not.

My experimental first chapter has definitely become my first chapter, though really there was never any doubt it would once it included an electro-static mud cannon.

I've also done a bit of work on retooling my first novel. I feel so much better about my second novel, I want to go back and use what I've learned to improve the first. That novel will likely end up too long to be marketable, but ::shrug:: I'll be happier if it's what I want it to be. Writing is my hobby, not my profession.

Making the novel what you want is a good choice. In terms of commercial, if someone loves it they will either publish at your length or find a way to cut it into multiple parts, maybe padding with short stories if it is too short for a two parter. Also ebooks are not as fussy as printed formats about upper limits. So if something else by gets published first, that could be published in a ebook plus POD format.

Unrelated: a bit of dream dialog last night that was amusing and might be worth someone's while to steal if they wished.

p1) "Vampires are notoriously fond of gossip and scandal."

Me) "Evil bastards! Total unlike us humans."

Any Daily Science Fiction subscribers around here? I sold a short story to them that's going out by email on Monday. It'll be free on the website a week later. At some point, I'll work up the moxy to post that in press.

Congratulations! I didn't know about Daily Science Fiction, now I am intrigued.

It's a lot of fun getting a story by email every day, and the site works well. I don't love all of the stories (I don't love _all_ of them in a lot of pubs), but I love enough that I look forward to seeing what's in the mailbag. The editors are good folks. Granted, I'm biased. They bought two stories of mine this spring/summer. The other will likely appear in/after November.

In other news, who is on Goodreads? I have Raq, Amy, & Barb already ...

I think I said it before, but if not, congratulations on the sales!

Thanks Gud & t !