Yes, I’m taking a week off, and it’s badly needed. Work has been fairly stressful lately, so it’ll be nice to get away from the grind for a while.

Vacations have been interesting events for me as far as writing in goes. In each of the past two vacations I took, I came back to find acceptances in my inbox. I’m hoping lightning strikes thrice and I can snag another one over this trip.

Tonight I finished a three-thousand story I hope will be uplifting and optimistic — and I’m completely ambivalent about it. I don’t know if I’ve done the idea justice or disservice. Basically, the entire tale is dialog. I think I’ll kick a copy to my long-time confidant of a first reader, Michael Anthony, he of recent Pseudopod notoriety, and see what he says.

Something came up lately: my byline. I’ve been thinking about dropping the “C.”. I’ve had mixed success using it. A few markets have credited me as “Jonathan Gillespie”, which shows up on google as quite a few people, which gets back to why I added the C (my middle name is Clinton, after my dad, and not the disgrace to this country), which is increasingly making me feel like an ass when I ask markets to add it back in to their listings.

So what do you think? Why not drop me your opinions below, and when I get back in town next week, I’ll respond.

Next week I turn 29. Seems like just yesterday I was 21, and interested in taking a casual stab at that writing thing I’d been meaning to try.