Week of July 8-14

[mrissa]

One rejection. I've managed to slip in some short story work this week without harming the focus on the novel, which is nice. I'd like to have a few more stories making the rounds.

I got copies of these today to give to a rather small percentage of my relatives. Haven't gotten my contributor's copies yet, but I saw that Amazon had them in stock, and I had some hopes that they'd arrive while the Swedes were still here. (Didn't, obviously, but I have some other things to put in a package to send over there anyway.) Ahh, the magic of glue.

I'm hoping for books for my birthday, because my to-read pile is now nonexistent: I'm in the middle of the last book that was on it. There's at least one thing on markgritter's pile I haven't read yet, and of course there is plenty of potential for rereading, with the books we have around here. I won't go into text starvation mode. But -- still, no books on my to-read pile! Astonishing!

Comments

[david-de-beer.livejournal.com]

hnh, just about everyone seems to be hitting rejections lately, except Cat Rambo and Aliette deBodard. wonder who's getting the happy-mails then?

> But -- still, no books on my to-read pile!

I'm trying, really trying, but I just can't visualize that. what does it look like? how does it happen? feel?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, step one is "read a bunch of books," and then step two is "don't buy more."

I think step two is where the problem comes in for a lot of people.

Also, I have recently run out of long series dd_b wants to lend to me, so I am suddenly much more dependent upon my own resources than I was for awhile there, and have not shifted back to public library usage to cover the difference yet. And then when I saw I was running low, I thought it would be a novel concept, running out of books on the to-read pile, so I decided to hold off on the library run and see what it felt like.

[ckd]

Step two is my usual failing, though of late step one has been not going so hot either.

OTOH, the good news on my failure at step two is that I went to my friendly local specialty bookstore (which needs to update the text on their website about the "upcoming" play from May) earlier this week. As a bit of a self-birthday-present, I bought some books, including a certain anthology of stories from an online magazine....

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Eeee!

[gaaldine.livejournal.com]

Did you ever read Circle of Sisters?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yep. (http://mrissa.livejournal.com/400828.html)

[ksumnersmith.livejournal.com]

I can't even imagine what it'd be like to have no to-read pile. Mine has been years in the making. And I didn't have the money to buy books for many of those years -- so many are freebies that I picked up at cons, or book expo, or otherwise grabbed because they were free (which is probably why most of them have not yet risen to the top of the pile).

I'm afraid I won't be able to help you with the birthday books, though. The only one I'd thought of buying for you is one that you have now read at least half of. *g*

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That's part of how I got through the pile: by starting and discarding freebies without reading all of them in their entirety. If I'd been saying, "Ick, no," less often, I'd still have books on the pile.

You -- like all other people reading this, taken individually -- are by no means responsible for regenerating the pile.

[ksumnersmith.livejournal.com]

Oh, goodness, I wouldn't be able to fill the pile faster than you read anyway, at least not without some serious effort. (Unless, of course, you'd be interested in giveaways from Book Expo Canada 2005.) I just have other plans for your gift this year.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I am intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.