Back to the Grind

Fully back to the grind it is. They made me use my brain at work. And it hurts it does, my precious. Also realized that catching up on my email using the “last in, first out” method is not a good way of rectifying an already-tardy correspondence situation.

Watched The Rundown last night. That’s the A&A movie with The Rock and Seann William Scott. Lots of gratuitous violence. Fun, with a couple giggle-out-loud lines, but unmemorable overall. I don’t feel the need to see it again. There was a bit of vicarious satisfaction at seeing Seann William Scott being pummeled, though. I blame it on pent up annoyance at his Stifler character in American Pie.

Writing stuff:

Wrote a review of the new Sci-Fiction story for Tangent, but zero word count on new stuff. Been futzing about with marketing stuffs in order to keep up the pretense that I’m being productive.

In my hardcopy files, I keep a folder for each story’s correspondence. For stories currently making the rounds, they amass rejections in a cheapo file folder–one of those manila jobbies that’s just a fold of paperboard with a tab at the top. I shove rejections into the folder every which way and that file tends to get a bit mussed looking. Sold stories graduate to pocket folders. One side pocket holds past rejections, the other acceptance letter(s), contract(s), galley proofs, etc. It’s a much neater filing locale with no paper edges sticking out or stray envelopes jutting.

I take an inordinate amount of glee in being able to create a pocket folder straight out for a story, thereby skipping the “it’s been rejected, dammit” step. “The Tax Collector’s Cow” was the sixth story I’ve sold on its first trip out (not counting the excerpts I’ve sold to the ELP library as that’s their only trip to market). Rah!

Sent off the “I’m all happy with your terms” letter to Spider/Cricket. I’ve got two more folk tales sitting on my hard drive, waiting to go to them. I haven’t run them through Critters yet, but since I didn’t send “The Tax Collector’s Cow” through the queue, I’m wondering if I need to.

But also, I’m loathe to glut the Carus editors with my submissions. Less loathe now that they’ve bought stories from me that were overlapping in consideration time. Hell, less loathe now that they’ve bought five stories from me. But still uncertain. I’m worried that I’ll end up competing with myself or wear out my appeal with them or something.

I’ve currently got a submission with them at Cricket and one at Cicada. The two I’ve got waiting are both Cricket bound. Right now I’m thinking I want to give them a three month gap between submissions. ‘Course by the time August rolls around and I clear off these two, I’ll probably have a couple more bottlenecked. Oh, well. Could be worse.