articles and pronouns are overrated

[thanate]

*Trying to read Melusine, as it's been on the list of things that sounded intriguing for a while now. Got ~2.5 chapters in, am vaguely intrigued by Mildmay and completely uninterested in following Felix down into despair and self-destruction until I sort out what's interesting about him. (Also, several brief moments of character gender confusion brought on by first person narrators and the fact that I'm subconsciously convinced Shannon is a girl's name. I get that with Morgan, too, based on who I knew with what names in elementary school.) Anyway... can anyone help me out with why it's worth my time (in general, or in particular if you know of things I'd think of as Cool Stuff) to continue reading? Spoilers ok.

*Baby continues cute, also trending towards more awake. This is preferable when it occurs mid-morning or early evening, rather than at 2 am when she doesn't really want to eat, just STARE AT MOMMY! Fortunately being stared at intently by a several-week-old child is far less disturbing than by an adult. Also fortunately, I'm getting better at distinguishing between when it's necessary to get her up & feed her and when she'll go back to sleep if ignored for thirty seconds longer.

*The cat is getting over his initial baby phobia, but thus far is still inclined to keep a cautious distance, which is fine by us. He's also decided that the cheap bouncy chair I brought home from the children's consignment store by the library (so I have somewhere safe for a more active baby to kick at things while I wash dishes or play with ovens) is *clearly* designed as a cat bed. He will probably be disappointed when I get as far as washing the seat bit and then want to put the Megatherium in it.

*Probably-finished the story I've been working on for the past six months last night. (It's a shocking 3.2k...) Need to read it all at one go to evaluate for tone/voice consistency, and then contemplate actually find some beta readers, as I'm not sure if the ending seems terribly predictable to me or to everyone else too.

*Relatedly, would happily punch google docs in the face, if in fact it had one. I have a g-mail address that I got as a back-up years ago (and if I were doing it now, I'd probably find *something* else) but no google accounts. A year ago, I was able to open direct links from my writing e-mail to a google doc of my own story as uploaded & commented upon by others, as long as I "logged in" with my gmail address, or cleared out the cookie that allowed google to notice I had any tie to them. Apparently this is no longer the case, as I've had beta comments stuck in limbo for the last two months (admittedly partly due to not getting around to dealing with it, because things!) because not only will following a direct link that they sent me not "allow me to access" the document, but neither will logging into my gmail, asking for permission to view it from there, and *being granted that permission by the "creator."* Um, yeah. Not interested in signing up for your service so you can have my supposedly real name and further data to give me access to a thing you just told me I was invited to look at.

*Also relatedly, sent a print sub to a short story market in January of 2012 which claims to reply within 6-8 months (depending on where on the site you look) and never heard back. With help from people on twitter, finally sorted out how to e-query asking if they could look up at what part of the process it had disappeared, did so about a month ago, and have not heard back. I am feeling ignored. Also unsure whether to try the pre-e-query theory[1] of resending the story with a cover letter briefly explaining the situation, or just give up on the market.

*Which last three points about sum up where my writing is at present (except for reading absurd numbers of writing-related articles via various other people recently, instead of which I could probably be rather more productive) but I have got to the point of considering this, and oddly enough besides the inherent distractability of caring for an infant I seem more on top of things than I have in months.


[1] I also get to talk about "scrubbing the grubby baby" daily. Whee! (Though how someone who doesn't do much but eat and sleep manages to get so grubby on a regular basis I have no idea.)

Xposty from dreamwidth.

Comments

[l. blankenship (from livejournal.com)]

Mildmay can totally carry the story, despite Felix's self-destruction spiral (which hits bottom fairly quickly) and long, painful journey back. IMO.

Will there be more baby pics?

[thanate.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing just reading the Mildmay chapters will end up being rather confusing, though... (Also, I think the book is due back at the library tomorrow, so maybe I'll come back to it. Phoey.)

Possibly? :)

[blairmacg.livejournal.com]

So glad to hear all is going well with you and baby. :)

I don't completely trust my memory as to which market you're subbing to, but if it is the one I'm thinking of, their response time for anything other than first-glance rejections can be long indeed.

[thanate.livejournal.com]

Thanks! :)

It's Cricket, which claims a maximum of 6 months on the magazine-specific website and max of 8 months for the publishing group as a whole. On the whole, I seem to be good at the out-of-sight, out-of-mind thing with submissions, but when I've exceeded double their wait time, I sort of feel like I'm being lazy not to follow up...

[blairmacg.livejournal.com]

I'd resub with an explaining cover letter. IIRC, their sister market Cicada took a year to get back to me, and the pub date was set out 18 to 24 months. They moved very slowly, but paid reeeeeeeally well.