- Climb out of bed and pull on a sweatshirt
- Stumble over to computer, turn on screen, move mouse to turn off screensaver, hit return to start FreePPP logging in
- Somewhere in here turn on a light, as soon as I feel I can cope
- Turn on space heater
- Go to kitchen, put water on to boil
- Come back to my room, log in, read first batch of mail, doing quick sort
- Go back to kitchen, pour water over tea
- Come back, read some more mail
- Back to kitchen, take out tea bag or tea ball, add one sugar and a little milk
- Come back to room, wrap blanket around feet, drink tea, work
- Turn off space heater
So, with the help of my colleagues' advice in the Erotica Workshop (oh, I am *so* glad I started that. The resource it's proving to be!), I've decided how to handle some of this decision-making process on the anthology. I'm sending rejections immediately, and holding everything else until deadline (1/1/98). I *wish* I could tell people sooner, or at least tell them how close they are, but since I'm not sure of that myself, it seems best to just wait. The provisional accept list is short, the reject list is short, the maybe list is huge. People are sending me good stuff! Even the rejected stories are competent enough that they could be published elsewhere (at least so far); they just aren't what I'm looking for. Not enough characterization and/or style, generally. I find that I hate sending out rejections. I wonder if I'm cut out to be an editor -- the last rejection I sent this morning was three paragraphs long. I am loving reading these stories, though.
In other news, I wrote another story yesterday. Yeeha! (is that how you spell that?) I think I'm on a roll; "Minh-Ha's Story" was sent out to the list of first readers this morning.
I want to talk to you guys about this book, about my ideas for it, the shape and form of it, etc. But I feel like I'll jinx it if I talk about it too much, especially if I do so in print, fixed-form media. Superstitious nonsense, no doubt, but hopefully y'all will bear with me for a while longer. One request -- if any of you are either of Vietnamese or Appalachian heritage, could you let me konw? I'll like you to do voice/character checks.
Okay, enough babbling. Off to work, my darlings. My tea is finished, my space heater is off.