1 August 2002

I'm still a little rattled from breaking one of our dishes this morning, but it's no big deal. Just kind of a bad way to start the morning.

I had a good way to finish the evening, though. Had a nice lunch with Timprov, went up and hung out with David and ate his famous spaghetti sauce (well, it's famous to Mary Anne, anyway), and then hung out in Berkeley with Zed and had happy birthday orange juice. (I used to think I didn't really like orange juice. Turns out I just don't like nasty processed orange juice all that well. The fresh-squeezed kind is good. There may be other things like that, too. Asparagus comes immediately to mind.) I finished Diana Wynne Jones' Drowned Ammet on the train home (it was fine, but I wanted the characters from Cart and Cwidder back, since it was a sequel). And when I got home, there was a letter waiting for me.

"Oh, Marissa, you're breaking my heart," it started. This amused me greatly. It was a very nice professional assistant editing type, telling me that one of my stories was not quite there, and that my other stories had also been not quite there, and did I perhaps want to try taking this one in a different direction or changing the ending? Um, sure. Definitely. I'll try that. If she's willing to say she loved the idea and it was the sort of thing she wanted on their pages and she was rooting for me, I'll definitely try messing with the ending. It's my least favorite part, anyway.

This is kind of cool. Problem is, I'm really not sure how I want the ending or new direction to go. I've asked my writing group and some of my friends if they want to help already. Are any of you guys interested in reading the story and helping me brainstorm suggestions? It's only 1100 words as it stands, so a) it won't take you long to read and b) it could get significantly longer without having a selling length problem. E-mail me. Let me know. (I'll even tell you which magazine it is. Ooh. Aah.)

So...my "uncle" Bill (the male half of my parents' best friend-couple, for those of you in need of a scorecard) is in town for business, and I don't know when he's going to call me or whether he's coming for dinner or what. So I'm going to make black-bean/steak chili, because I can throw it in the crockpot and just leave it there on low indefinitely, and it'll still be good, no matter when Bill turns up.

(I love crockpot recipes for that very reason.)

So it looks like Finley is the project lady today: a new magazine, a new story out. Go read. Or if you want, you can go look at some of my Aunt Mary's paintings. She does a lot of very abstract stuff -- the bright abstract in our living room, the one that's in the background of a lot of our pictures, is hers -- but these are more nature through an abstract lens. So there. I've got a few things I'd like to write about here tomorrow, but for the meantime, I'm going to make it a short entry and take care of something around here, writing or carpet cleaning or something like that. Reading F&SF or MI6. There is, let me assure you, plenty. As always.