In Which the Waiting Pays Off A Little

24 November 2003

Occasionally, the timing comes out just right. Yesterday I was having a pretty bad day, and I sold "Bestseller" to Continuum. (It's new.) Not a career-making sale, but I didn't intend "Bestseller" for a career-making story. It's fun, is what it is. And sometimes fun is a good thing, and sometimes it's particularly a good thing for me to recognize that I can be fun. And get paid for it, even. Yay! Bringing the total up to four to one, rejections to sales this month; that may be my best ratio since I started. Hmm. It may not. Not important. Anyway, yay for acceptances! And may there be more of them in the mail today.

I started my Christmas list -- not the one that tells people what I want, but the one that says what I've bought or need to buy for other people. I've bought enough now to need to write it down and strategize the rest. And I need to get wish lists from some people. And I need to make sure I know who does and doesn't want to do Christmas presents this year. For the people whose opinions count, that is; there's a category of people who are getting something from me whether they want it or not and another of people who aren't getting anything from me no matter how much they beg.

Mmm, second breakfast. My first breakfast was pathetic (the end of the box of Blueberry Morning, barely enough to stick in your eye), so I got myself an English muffin with raspberry jam, the kind from Canada that's sold out so you can't have any unless you come over here. (She still has Sweet and Sour Plum Sauce, though, and that's pretty awesome.) I had elevensies on Saturday. I still don't think I'd make a very good hobbit, though, because elevensies was half a pancake, and no hobbit would stop at half and then follow it with lunch of a salad and a fruit nest. At least, not by choice. I do have hairs on my toes, though, so maybe that counts for something. Little fine girly hairs. But still.

I finished Tamora Pierce's Magic Steps, which was fine, entertaining, and then read Adam Haslett's You Are Not a Stranger Here. Um. If you're having a bad day, do not read these short stories. In fact, if you've had a bad day within the last...um...five to six years, and you do not wish to relive it, do not read these stories. I don't think writing about mental illness has to be depressing. Even writing about depression doesn't have to be. It can be positively awe-inspiring to see what acts of consideration and creativity people can commit while fighting their own neurochemistry. You Are Not a Stranger Here is not like that at all. It's just down, down, down.

I finished that and looked with some trepidation at the two remaining books on my library pile, both thick, nuanced, dark speculative novels. Layers of darkness, no. Some days I could wallow in the layers of darkness and trust, having read both of these authors before, that they would bring me out into the light by the end of the book. Yesterday was not one of those days. Yesterday I reached for The Whim of the Dragon and was deeply, profoundly grateful to have it. Not that it is free of nuance or nastiness. Just that it is a much fierier book than either of the ones on my library pile. Those are getting renewed; they'll expire while the family is here, and I don't think I'll have time to read and return them before then. And I really do want to read them. It's just...it's just. Not now, not this morning, even. Even though things are going better in here. Not quite yet. The Whim of the Dragon makes me happy and has caught me in the fundamental anticipation of What Happens Next. It will be good to have this to read in between bits of work and errand around here.

Of which, you may be certain, we have plenty. It's stopped snowing, though, so shoveling the driveway will not be as much of an attempt to hit a moving target. I will be able to shovel, go out to the grocery store (and Target and so on) and be able to use the driveway again without shoveling first. Yay for that. This driveway...is on a bit of a slope. One might say.

And now, and now...I really should be a good kid and throw on jeans and a shirt of some kind and socks and boots and hat and coat and mittens and scarf and head on out to shovel before I shower, so that I don't get all sweaty after my shower or get freeze-dried hair. All right. Well. It's a plan.

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