Music: Pogue's "Red Roses for Me" and various Todd Rundgren
TV/Movie: West Wing
Link o' the Day: Mammoth, Thrilling and Wrong

In thinking about the submission response time from Drexel, I've decided to wait another month before prodding. I may regret this later, however. I did a search at the Speculations Rumor Mill and saw someone had gotten a response in four months with no prodding. My story has been there only three, and for many print publications that's not a long time. Dang, but the waiting game is hard.

But on the plus side, "Fulton's Monster", "A Snowball's Chance", and "Pact Anthology" all went out to various markets today. Tomorrow "Dragonscaling for Beginners" goes out as well. The novella version of "Will of the Whisps" will likely be sent out on Monday. This will make a total of seven stories in the slush piles, and hopefully I'll add three more before long. Three poems are sitting in slush at Pedestal and four are patiently awaiting their turn at the Boston Review.

Work continues on writing tonight even though it's West Wing night. There's nothing quite like hunkering down and being on a roll. (This journal entry is my "break". Even on a break I'm writing. Am I sick, or what?)

Today's link is time sensitive, so if you click on it and don't find Scott Edelman's editoral "Mammoth, Thrilling and Wrong", look for it in the archives. I'm very inclined to agree with Edelman that Michael Chabon's current anthology project sells short fiction short. I've not read the anthology (yet) myself, so don't know if Edelman is quoting grossly out of context, but I've seen this sort of thing happen before whenever someone tries to introduce SF to a mainstream audience. The first thing to do is distance itself from a genre with a pulp history and slap on other labels. Sometimes it works as with Kurt Vonnegut. Sometimes it doesn't. I hear Harlan Ellison still gets frothy whenever someone calls him a science fiction writer as opposed to... what's his term of preference? Speculative fiction writer?

In any case, it's a thought-provoking editorial. Short fiction is far from dead. In fact, science fiction, fantasy, and horror are probably the main reasons why the form makes any money at all outside of "high literary" journals. Granted, it would be nice to see more print markets. Stronger markets. Compared to only twenty years ago, it looks like we're in a real slump. Online magazines are nice and all, but they're only just beginning to show some staying strength and the majority of online zines don't make enough money to attract first-rate stories. (Please note that I do not include _all_ online magazines. Strangehorizons and Sci-Fiction stand out as excellent examples of how online magazines can work.)

All right.. I've carped long enough for the nonce and it's time to get back to work.

Cheers!

P.S. SFWA Bulletin subscribers... please let me know when/of your issue arrives. Mine arrived today and I'm trying to get a feel for how long Bulk Mail gets around the country when it's not holiday season.