Yahoo have revamped their UK interface. It is now extremely ugly and hard to read. A lesson in why change is not necessarily progress.

#

Talking about change, I've been fiddling with the plot of Water Ways, Iron Roads again as I continue to revise. I'm hoping it's more coherent, now, although it's got a long way to go. At the moment there are far too many "Why on earth would he do that?" moments.

I've wondered many times whether it's worth the time revising this rather than writing something new. I think it is. I'm forcing myself to think a lot about novel structure, which can only help.

Here's one thing I've decided I need in the story: change. When I write out the character's premises, there is very little change in them as they go through the story. Currently, at the end, most of them are as they were at the beginning, or close to it. I think that perhaps the hardest thing I'm going to have to do in this revision is to ensure that change really does happen to, particularly, the protagonist, who currently changes least.

#

I'm going through another impatient phase about story submissions. I seem to have a knack for attracting especially long response times. Magazines that regularly respond in 2 weeks inexplicably take 2 months for me. Those that take 2-3 months are going strong at 6-8 months with no response. No doubt F&SF will be back with a timely rejection soon, though.