Insert witty title here.

Just a quick update. My wife had surgery today that hopefully dealt a swift blow to her breast cancer and we can put this fight behind us. It's our third round with cancer, if it's over this quickly I will be thrilled.

Now publishing news... none yet. I'm working on perfecting my synopsis for the agents and editor that wanted to see my work. I've received a literary review of one of my short stories from a Russian Professor... it was pretty awesome and made me happier than a puppy with two peters. Something about knowing that a story you wrote moved someone is just super exciting.

To go along with that the same story will now be used as teaching material at the University of Irkutsk in Russia. Which is also über exciting.

Soo... yeah that's basically it. An exciting time with a hell of an emotional roller-coaster but it's well worth the ups and downs.

Until next time my friends... oh and I'll have the review posted here eventually... once I have it scanned.

The good, the bad, and the Dustyn

So I totally failed in my vow to update every week until the Writer's Digest Conference in New York, and I completely failed at posting anything during the conference. Honestly though, if you follow me here, you shouldn't be surprised.

So here's what happened. I learned some interesting things, I met some totally awesome people, and I have two agents and an editor that want to see my book. I won't say I fell in love with New York City but I did get a pretty bad case of lust for New York City.

So what is going on right now?

Well I am working on writing a synopsis for the ones that want to see my stuff. I'm dealing with a health scare with my wife. Truth be told the day I left she got a biopsy to see if she has another form of cancer. I thought about telling the agents I was pitching my book to about it so they would understand my high level of nerves but then I thought I might get pity requests... or worse, look like I was asking for pity, so I kept it to myself.

I'm also waiting to see if Russia is interested in publishing one of my short stories. I started a new job, crushed a finger two days before the conference and am now sporting 3 lovely stitches. Oddly enough I'm optimistic. Or at least, as optimistic as I get.

You see they often say that in life you must take the good with the bad. I have a theory that the harder the bad is, the better the good is. With writing I'm shooting for the moon. So to attain it I should expect to hit rock bottom.

In the end I believe it will all work out in my favor. Of course I also have a belief that I'm part cat as I have a habit of landing on my feet.

Now I'm going to write my synopsis, curse it, rewrite it, probably curse it again, rewrite it again, bang my head on the desk, maybe cry, curse some more and hopefully then write one I feel comfortable with.

I'm also going to work on a new website and will probably move this blog to it... not fully decided on that right now so we'll see.

With any luck I'll have an answer from the University of Moscow before I finalize things so I can put that in my letter... at least if they accept me and send me a contract.

What does all of this mean for my blog? Well, it basically means that I'll probably keep updating with my normal irregularity, I'll apologize, you'll forgive me because I'm awesome, and then we'll both wait for me to decide to ramble again.

For now my friends, I bid you goodnight, happy trails, farewell... yeah I haven't slept much.