This is mostly to get that Bad Review entry off the top of my journal, because really, I think it's taken enough of my attention already.

Heather and I made a big crazy stir-fry last night in one of our fancy new wedding pans. And can I just say, we have the best friends ever? The gifts everyone sent are amazing. We'll be writing thank you cards for months, and we'll be happy to do it. We now have wonderful stuff in our too-narrow kitchen! It makes me want to have a better bigger kitchen, to be worthy of such stuff.

Not much of external portent going on, which is fine, as the past few months have been more than portentous enough. I'm having one of those rich-inner-life weeks, though -- reading a lot, thinking about my novel-in-progress, figuring out stuff about the protagonist in particular. For some reason, he's been hard for me to get a handle on -- he's just a guy who moves the plot, rather than a fully-developed character. But I've figured out some crucial stuff about him, which should make him much more real and interesting. It'll require rewriting the first 100 pages of the book a bit, natch, but that's okay. I do a lot of rewriting anyway.

Got another rejection on a story that every editor says they like but that none of them want to buy. (This last rejection had one of the editors calling it brilliant and the other editors calling it pretty good -- I'm guessing the fact that it's 9,000 words long makes it a harder sell too.) I thought I was out of good markets for the story, but then I remembered a recent invitation I'd received to submit to a new online 'zine of good pedigree, and lo, they're willing to consider stories of that length, so I sent the story off again. We'll see. No matter what, it'll be in the new collection, because it fits too well thematically not to be included, but I'm hoping it'll have first publication somewhere else first. I think it's one of the best stories (if not the best story) I've written in the past couple of years.

The only other bit of writing-stuff that's happening is that I have to send a letter officially terminating my association with my current literary agency. But for a good reason -- my agent got a better job at another agency (where she will be a full agent, not a junior agent! woo hoo!), so I'm going with her. In a couple of months (once I'm contractually disentangled from the current agency) I'll be with Curtis Brown, which is a good and venerable agency that is, I'm told, looking to expand its SF/Fantasy roster. In this business, it's about personal relationships -- the people you work with, not the company they work for -- so I'm happy to move with Ginger.

Otherwise, the day job is fine. This isn't an extraordinarily difficult issue, but I'm neck-deep in obituary material about Charles L. Harness, and I'm still trying to sort it all out. We go to press in a week. Should be doable, but there's a lot of writing between here and there.

Married life (after 12 days!) is marvelous, but then, living with Heather has been consistently marvelous, and I didn't expect that to change.