Lunch Break Ramblings

I brought in a PBJ for my lunch today, so I could spend my entire lunch break at my desk and bypass dealing with the lunch room at all. In theory, this would leave me some time for writing. In practice, said writing will likely be this entry, and nothing else. Still, that's progress, of a sort.

I'm *way* behind on my monthly quota for Prophecy this month, since I've been scraping by with the bare minimum needed for the last two weeks. However, I buckled down last night and wrote nearly two pages, so that's looking up a bit. And I even have the seeds of an idea for another bridge scene (by which I mean "a scene that explains how characters got from Scene A to Scene C, where Scenes A & C have already been written") I need to write, so perhaps I'll do that tonight.

But, I'd also like to schedule the next Just Trust Me game, probably for this Sunday, which means I'll have to start planning for that. At least I'm not bored.

And on the "not bored" front, I've been trying to come up with a short story idea, just because, well, I haven't written a short story in a couple of months and those last two I finished were so much fun ....

I haven't had a lot of luck thinking of one that I want to write. I have sort-of-kind-of half an idea for a story involving Chang Juan, a recently-introduced character from Silver Scales. But I want to have a clear idea of what the plot is, just for a change, before I start writing it. I don't know why I'm being so fussy; I've hardly ever known where my stories are going at the point that I get started.

Well, except that I have known where all my short stories were going when I started writing them. Maybe that's why.

I'm not quite out of time for lunch yet, but I seem to be out of things to put in this entry. Oh, wait, there was this scam I was going to write about. Well, I don't have enough time for all of *that*.

My very first rejection letter!

How exciting!

"An Old-Fashioned Chat" got turned down by F&SF, in record time. I put it in the mail less than two weeks ago. Wow!

Now I have to decide who I'm going to send it to for rejection next. Hmm. Analog, I think; I haven't sent them anything yet. I'm glad "Chat" got rejected first; "She's Having a Baby" is quite short, and accordingly a little harder to find a market for. At 3,000 words, "Chat" ends up right in the middle of most magazines' "usual range" for story length.

The rejection letter was a bit less formal, and less form-letter-ish, than I expected. It was signed, for example (not stamped) by the editorial assistant, and it had the name of my story in it. Not that this is any more personal than a standard mass-mailing, but I expected, you know, a preprinted "Thank you for your submission. It does not suit our needs at this time" snatched from the stack and stuffed into an envelope. I guess they don't have the kind of volume of submissions that they need to be *that* impersonal.

I'm half-tempted to scan in the rejection to show. :) I'm really tempted to send a different story to F&SF, just to see if I get the same rejection letter.

I'll probably send F&SF another story anyway. "She's Having a Baby", when it gets rejected by Asimov's, maybe. Or if I ever do write something new, I'll send it. If Chang Juan gets her own short story, it'd be fantasy, so I'd likely send it to F&SF 'cause they're the only magazine I know offhand that publishes fantasy. :)

I wonder how long the process of being rejected will continue to amuse me? I have these two big boxes of 9x12 and 10x13 envelopes (for mailing submissions out flat -- the larger envelope so that I don't have to fold the smaller SASE). And a whole bunch of stamps. And I know what the postage cost for mailing "Chat" is ($1.06 for the mailer, $0.83 for the SASE). All I have to do is a new cover letter, mailing labels, and I'm set. I really should buy a new printer so I can do the mailing labels and cover letters at home.

I've been wanting to mail out another story anyway. And now I have one to send! :)