But that’s okay, because it really is wondrously grand.

This, this, this, this is the sort of thing I need to find, crawl into, and photograph. Found via Neil Gaiman’s blog, a bit wishfully shared here.

Ellen Datlow and Nick Mamatas are editing a new anthology for Tor called Haunted Legends. Even niftier: they are accepting open submissions for it. This is virtually unheard-of. I imagine the competition is going to be v. stiff. Most of the better-known stories and legends are likely to be already taken by authors of the sort that get emails or phone calls saying “please would you write something for this anthology?” rather than the sort I am, which is almost precisely backwards of that dynamic, and involves me hopefully and rather desperately sending off emails saying “please won’t you publish this in your anthology?”.

Despite this, I hear you say, do you honestly intend to write something, edit it into something you wouldn’t be ashamed to use as tinder in a campfire, and send it off, likely only to be rejected as crap?

Yup. I do indeed. Watch me crash and burn, folks! It’ll be a pretty pyre, and I feel fairly good about it all. And who the hell knows? Maybe it won’t be crap after all.

In other news, I am going to try to craft this headphone mod in time for A-Kon. Which may be a moot endeavour, as the Doctor (my iPod) is being a moody, nonfunctional pile of uselessness. I should, perhaps, rename it, but damnit, David Tennant is so adorable, and when I scored the Doctor, it sort of matched the look: affably, slightly deviant looking. Ah, well.

Avanti, y’all!