21 November 2003

So. Some of my e-mail is still delayed and some is not. I still have no rejection or acceptance letters. I didn't even get any requests for rewrites or holds or anything like that. Yarg. I did get stuff printed out to go in today's mail, using the borrowed printer. Yay borrowed printer. But still, I wish somebody would get back to me about something. Something fictional, even.

I did a lot of articles yesterday, and I'm down to one and a half for today, both on the long end as these articles go. I think I should be able to finish them both by the end of the day, reasonably. Then I'll have the weekend to play and do house stuff without worrying about whether it'll all be in on time. And I can also get things set up with the new printer without worrying about same. It'll be good. I hope.

I added two more book projects to my list this week, bringing the total up to fifty-one. Yikes. Some people don't write fifty-one books ever. In fact, I would go so far as to say that most people don't write fifty-one books ever. And I know I'll come up with more ideas eventually and want to write those. Still, when I look at the book project list, it makes me sad to think of not writing any of them. They all look cool to me. If they didn't, I wouldn't have written them down in the first place. When I have an idea and think about it and decide it's not that great, I don't put it on the list. I might jot a few notes about it in my journal in case I get a related inspiration or change my mind later or something, but it doesn't make the list. The book projects list is not like the starters file on the computer, which has some topics and some opening lines and some random paragraphs and some titles and some one-line story synopses and so on. Some of those things shouldn't become novels. Some shouldn't even become short stories. But they're there if I need them, or want them, or feel like babbling for a few journal pages with a prompt, or if it turns out I was wrong about them. I'm like the Barenaked Ladies song. You know the one: "I need someone to stand behind me and write it all down, because I can't be bothered doing it myself and I don't want the responsibility of proving its importance." Except I'm willing to be bothered doing it myself. Hmm. So I'm not actually very much like that song at all, because I'll take the responsibility of asserting its importance. Just not right away, and not all of it.

I read the last of Swanwick's Periodic Table of Science Fiction this morning. I think it was a good ending for this particular project -- I was amused anyway. And I thought most of it was amusing rather than deep and life-changing, and there's nothing wrong with that. Especially compared to Jack Faust.

I'm really not caring much for Fitcher's Brides. So far there has been too much ungraceful exposition for my taste. Too much exposition at all, in some ways, but I haven't particularly found it fascinating. Tack on a fairly long introduction, and I'm 93 pages in and just barely feeling like anything has happened at all. I mean, it's not bad, it's just not really going very strong yet. Not a lot to recommend it at this point. We'll see.

I'm trying not to look forward too much to the end of the article writing as time for me to get a ton of other writing projects done. For one thing, I know that I have house stuff to do in abundance, but for another (perhaps shocking to you-all who are regulars), I hope to take some time as a break. Wander in my city and enjoy it without a lot in the way of goals. Or stay put without a lot in the way of goals. Either way. Tomorrow, maybe. There'll be time enough Sunday and Monday and Tuesday for cleaning and baking and shopping and organizing.

Um. At least, that's the hope.