mrissa | Week of December 5-11

Two rejections. Two query-responses saying, "Oh, gosh, no, we never got that story." (One of them was particularly snotty, saying that if I hadn't heard back in N days, "clearly" they had never received the story. Oh, clearly. They're the only mag in the world where nothing ever falls behind a desk, gets eaten by the USPS, gets knocked into the recycling bin when it should have gone in the outbox, etc. etc. etc.)

My favorite lj bit of the day came when

sosostris2012 addressed her characters: "I'm all, 'Bitch, you could have said that during the last draft.'" Um, yes. Yes indeed. I got notecards, on the theory that I wasn't doing so hot on revisions without them and might as well see if things go better with them.

Also, of course the short story that's been taunting me all week is not the one I'd like to send out for Christmas. Naturally. Couldn't be that convenient.

markgritter's plane gets in tonight; that'll be good. We can maybe get the Christmas tree decorated one of these first years. Every time I've thought about doing it, it's been night and too cold out on the sun porch to be really comfortable for more than a few minutes. It's our auxiliary fridge out there. The tins of Christmas goodies are piling up.

I keep telling myself that I don't have to do everything I can think of doing for Christmas. I am not adding anything at all to the baking list, not deliberately and not accidentally. (The banana bread got added accidentally: we had browning bananas, what was to be done? The portable turtles and the apricot peanut butter fudge got added on purpose because they're easy and seem worth it. It's the same pb fudge as I usually make, because

porphyrin's Mike is spoiled, except it's made with the fancy apricot peanut butter, because Mike is really, really spoiled.) It is December 11. No additions to the baking/candy-making list in the two weeks before Christmas. This is now a hard and fast rule.

I am very good at coming up with more stuff to do. It may, in fact, be my main skill.