Goodbye, Squishy (and other things)
July 2
11 a.m.
Busy morning! I've had not a moment's rest since I got to work. But I'm not annoyed; it's been fun work, proofing and such, and I'm in a very good mood (despite the sad absence of a Heather! she left at 8 this morning). I don't really have time to write now, but I'm waiting for a thirty page fax to go through so that I can send another fax, so I have a moment to catch up on random things...
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Squishy is over. Sad, though pamie certainly has good reasons for ending the run. I feel the way I felt when Calvin and Hobbes ended, when I read the last Bloom County comic, when Preacher ended-- though at least with those I can still read the old stuff when I want, and be reminded, whereas pamie's archives are gone, too. Sigh. I remember when I first started reading Squishy, and when I read the whole of the archive a few months ago. I used to e-mail the funniest entries to Meg-- which meant that I sent her two or three entries a day, because Squishy was so often funny. I'll be doing my best to follow Pamela Ribon's career from here on... though I'll certainly miss the pamie who brought us Squishy.
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A couple of rejections lately. First, The Paris Review passed on some of my poetry. Ah, well. If not for Paris Review (and Kenyon Review, and Poetry, and so on), who would keep me humble? GVG bounced "Little Gods of Grief," saying he liked the characters but that he already has several stories in inventory that deal with similar themes. He also said it was somewhat overwrought. I assume he meant overly-emotional and not overly-crafted, since it's one of the more stylistically spontaneous of my stories... it is blatantly emotional, though. I can't argue with him there.
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Mike has a new story at Strange Horizons, titled "Explosions." It's set in the same world as his previous SH story "Crossing the Camp" and his WotF story "Mud and Salt." Good stuff. Go read it.
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Productivity wise, I sent out a lot of stories yesterday. Several things have returned to me lately, and I haven't been turning them around very efficiently. I aspire to a "The sun will set on no manuscript in this house!" method or re-submitting, but the truth is that I tend to let them pile up for a couple of weeks. Bad Tim. That took most of the morning, especially since I found markets for a couple of stories I'd pretty much given up on selling, and I spent a little time polishing those. I'm fairly pleased with how much I got done. No actual writing, but the business stuff has to be done, too, and I tend to neglect it.
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I'm reading China Miéville's King Rat, and liking it a lot (astute readers may recall that I tried to read it many moons ago, and couldn't get into it). I think last time I tried this book I just wasn't in the right frame of mind to enjoy a novel so damned gritty and English. :) Now I like it very much. I'm looking forward to reading Perdido Street Station, too, especially after reading David's review of it in Strange Horizons a bit ago.
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I realized this morning that I haven't written a novel since I got a "real" job. The last one I finished I did right after Clarion, while working at an antique store. Intellectually, I know this shouldn't make any difference-- I did work full time at the antique store, and it's not as if my subsequent "real" (read: more demanding, better paying, including benefits, etc.) jobs have demanded all that much more time. Still... the thought troubled me for a moment. I'm trying to figure out the roots of my difficulty, I guess. Granted, the last novel I tried to write was crippled at its inception-- I started it too soon, without enough of an idea of what the book entailed, and that's why I couldn't finish it. There's no mystical reason I haven't written a novel since 1999, I know that. But still, I'm troubled. I'd wanted to have Rangergirl done by the end of July; that's not going to happen. I'm hoping for the end of August, now, though what with moving to Oakland and having to search for a new job, that might not be possible, either.
I need to write a book this year. I need to prove to myself that I still can.
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Mmm. Nice day. Beautiful weather. I lingered at home a bit this morning after Heather left. I made a cup of tea and sat on the couch and let peacefulness permeate. Some little nagging worries have lately been resolved, and it's amazing how much better that makes me feel-- the little stuff tears me up, I'm telling you. I don't have fear or worries about many of the big things. I know what I want to do with my life, I don't suffer from much in the way of existential angst. I have love and good friends and art. But the little things-- I let them get to me to a completely unreasonable degree. I don't know why. You'd think I'd have more perspective than that.
All's well now, though. I'm going to do a bit of work, then eat a sandwich by the pool. Take care, darlings.
