I finished the rewrites on the piece I sold to Rush Hour and on the whole I'm pretty happy with it. It stands on its own but it's also meant to be a sample of the novel I'm just starting. Rush Hour is a young adult literary magazine; my piece will appear in a theme issue dealing with Teens In Trouble or something like that. The piece is untitled as of now but it will appear under my real name - Benjamin Foster; I would've gone with Ben Foster but for the fact that some Hollywood actor is walking around with that name. I'd like to meet him someday to compare horror stories.
The only thing I haven't finished yet is the author bio, which I can't seem to even start without tasting vomit in the back of my mouth. The editor sent me examples from other authors appearing in the same issue but I got sidetracked when I ran across the name Tabitha Soren, the ex-MTV veejay and wife of Moneyball author Michael Lewis. See? Everything comes back to baseball. And daydreaming, of course, as I imagine receiving an invite to a swanky soiree at the Soren/Lewis estate, being feted by by SF's Elite in an orgy of champagne and caviar and unpronounceable French entrees. But such fantasies don't have the power they did in my youth, as I've learned over the years that meeting famous people really isn't all that exciting. Besides which, seeing as how Soren and Lewis bring home the bacon by writing, said banquet would likely consist of something more along the lines of a low-key barbeque in the backyard of an El Cerrito tract home that I hear about on the Internet four years after the fact. But if you're going to daydream you might as well bring out the big guns; I see nothing wrong with indulging myself on occasion.
So the author bio sits unfinished, taunting me. My agent wants me to make mention of Screeching Weasel, which may account for the puke-mouth, while I'm seriously considering just making a bunch of stuff up on the premise that it's unlikely I'll ever be asked to write one again. Best to just hold my nose and dive in, I suppose.