Pop Quiz, Hotshot

Over in the UK a couple guys stole a copy of the forthcoming Harry Potter, and shots were fired. Sounds like a job for Thursday Next. If ever any of my books induces a gun battle, I will consider my life complete.

Cathy Wald has a neat quiz up over at Gallycat on the rejections all writers must endure. I think my rejections so far break down something like this:

1) It's too sci-fi to be literary.
2) It's too literary to be sci-fi.
3) Does it have to be about a teenage girl?
4) It's really original and I enjoyed the characters but it's not me.

Being a writer requires industrial patience. Especially if you're trying to get published. The last few months I've mellowed a little on I HAVE TO GET PUBLISHED FOR MY LIFE TO BE VALIDATED. Why? What will change? I'll still be broke. The people I try so hard to get the approval of still won't care. The only difference will be I won't have this pressure on me any longer, and it's just pressure I put on myself. And if I've learned anything in life, it's that the best things in life come to when you stop looking for them.

Anyways. I finished the dust-off of the old story last night. I'm having trouble with the title and of course I'm hung up with doubt about it, but I'm mostly satisfied with it. You read so much these days about people killing their familes, strangers, just walking in and out of the blue murdering everyone in sight. You wonder what on earth is going on in their heads, in this country where we have this so often, and this story is a meager attempt to understand it for myself.

I've sent out the first round of submissions for the story I finished last week.

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