The Good News.
I received the proofs for Love Stories from the Jungle a couple of days ago. Pleasingly, they've not tried to insist on the changes they wanted to this story (see previous journal entry), and so this is the story I wanted.

The proofs are for the entire anthology, and I've had a chance to flick through the other stories. So far they're looking pretty good. This is certainly looking like an anthology I'm really happy to be in. I made the mistake, however, of reading through my own story, though. Why do I do that? I am never happy with my stories, and that's particularly true for my older stories. Love Stories is one of my earliest. I wrote it during week 1 of Clarion West in 2001. I'd only completed a handful of stories before that. Now, I like this story. I still think it's a good one, and it still affects me emotionally when I read it. But I can't help noticing things I want to change. Not big things. Just a few sentences here and there, maybe some fiddling with the pace of a few sections, a little more dialogue maybe. Although it's only about a year and a half since I wrote the story, I think I'm a far better writer now that I was then. Probably a whole lot better than I was when I submitted the revised story to the anthology.

I guess that this is one of those writer's lessons: you have to know when to let a story go and to stop fiddling with it. It is finished, for better or worse, and it is about to be published. There is nothing I can do to change it. So I should leave it. And to leave it, I have to not read it again when it's published. Anyway, despite my petty dissatisfactions with some of the wording, I'm really excited about having my second publication appear.

The Bad News.
About the same time I got the proofs, my car was stolen. It was in a car park surrounded by signs claiming 24 hour CCTV coverage (apparently there is, just not on the level I was parked on). I reported it to the police straight away, and the next morning I got a call saying that my car had been found and that I could come to pick it up. The downside is that I have to pay the company who are holding it £117 to pick it up, and the price goes up £12 a day until I get it. Oh yeah, and it's twenty miles away, and I don't have a car to go and pick it up with. Hopefully someone will give me a ride out there on Monday, but I have no idea whether I will be able to start the car or drive it. If not, I guess that'll be another heavy fee to get it towed home. The last time this car was broken into (in the same car park: I won't be using that one again, no matter how convenient it is) the thieves used a screwdriver and hammer to smash out the locks, and my friend, Neil, who is my consultant on matters car related tells me that the normal way of stealing this type of car is to hammer a screwdriver into the ignition then turn it that way. So, I don't know whether I'll be able to start it. If I'd had a properly wasted childhood I would have learnt how to hotwire cars, but I was sitting at home writing instead.

To continue moaning, this isn't a good time for this to happen. I'm still trying to find a job with not much luck. Frustratingly, universities (which are where I'm looking for most my jobs) don't seem to bother to tell you if your application is unsuccessful, so you send out all these forms and letters that take hours to write and you never hear back. Anyway, I haven't had a proper full time job for years now, for one reason or another, and our finances didn't need another blow.