15 January 2006

I finished a short story, "Carter Hall Sweeps a Path," on Friday. Today is -- like all Sundays -- my day off. Still, it feels like the brain is firing on more story-related cylinders lately, since just before Christmas. This is a good thing.

I am trying not to let the rediscovered brain-firings translate into a conviction that I must write until I can't prop myself in front of the keyboard any longer. So far this has been pretty successful.

I got a double-rejection today: that is, a magazine rejected a story it had already rejected in October. I read the rejection letter and thought, ah well, so it goes; I wasn't at all sure that the edits they requested would work out to mutual satisfaction. I went to log it, and the people who requested the edits were another publication entirely, who have looked at this story since (as I said) the first publication rejected it in October. I'm not sure this qualifies as a good thing or a bad thing, but it's certainly bemusing. The second rejection letter is specific enough that I'm sure they're referring to the same story, and the first rejection letter couldn't have been referring to the story they have now because they didn't have it yet then. This is all very silly.

Today -- tonight, really -- my folks returned the pup to us. I think she had a great time with her grandmonkeys and great-grandmonkeys and will be perfectly happy to spend time with them again when it comes up. And now she's trotting around busily checking on everything and everyone here, and we're shaking our heads and having our hands licked and so on.

So that's what.