Recovery

Thankfully I didn't need a doctors visit because of the ant bites. I was limping a bit when I went back to work on Tuesday; my feet were still burning. I pretty much left the bites alone and have let them heal naturally; (although I used various creams to insure I didn't get an infection or any other complications.)

I've learned from past experience that messing or scratching them will leave a scar. I did soak my feet both Tuesday and Wednesday to speed the healing. They've come along nicely. Thankfully, I still heal well (not always the case when you have Type II diabetes) The lawn is getting overgrown but I haven't the nerve to get back to it myself; we're going to pat someone to finish what I started.

In my last post I mentioned how the Labor Day weekend marked when I began writing four years ago. Yesterday the 8th marked the fourth anniversary of the first day I dropped a story in the mail (it also happened to be the 40th anniversary of the debut of "Star Trek", which attracted some oublicattention.)

While puttering around the web this week, I found out that GateWay s-f, which gave me my first acceptance, shut down on August 15. GateWay accepted a story of mine in January 2003 (although it wasn't published until December). I usually refer to Revolution SF as the first place I was published, which is true. I met Jayme Blaschke at ConDFW in February 2003, and sent him "Silvern" in March, which he published in June. That fall he also published "Silence is Golden" - which was the first story of mine to earn an honorable mention. So although GateWay was the first to accept a story, they were third to publish one.

I've also often given credit to Andromeda Spaceways because right at the start of that year they passed a story through the first reading. That was the first time I didn't get an outright rejection. They later didn't bite, but Revolution published the story, "Dialogue"< in 2005 (and it also earned an HM).

They folks at GateWay said on their web site they just had other things they needed to do and they planned a hiatus for at least two years, at which time they would consider starting back up. I give them - and anyone who loves s-f enough to try to maintain a webzine - great credit for their efforts.

This is the second webzine that has published me to go belly up. Astounding Tales shut down at rhe end of last year. In their case, it appears differences among the principals led to a bust up. They published "Circe in Vitro" in 2004. That earned an HM, too.