Dr. Phil's LiveJournal

The blogosphere is a tortuous device. A mentions B which links to C, and then D makes a comment, so you check D's blog site... There's no way to geek it all -- so we all make matters worse by linking things we've seen others link away on... (grin)

Baen's Universe

Clarion friend slithytove linked, via douglascohen, some comments by new market Baen's Universe Asst. Editor nancyfulda on The Seven Deadly Sins of Slush. Some of these are general and some are specific to what Baen's Universe wants. Given that Baen's Universe is paying "above market" rates, it's a market you might want to consider submitting to.

Polyphony on Rejections

jaylake wrote that mme_publisher at Polyphony/Wheatland Press is dealing with a family medical situation and so the next round of Polyphony rejects may be slow in coming. Curious, I clicked over to mme_publisher to see what was on the blog and found this, which did not seem to start out as an April Fool's thread, but which got rather humorous about Rejectomancy. (grin)

Mmm... the problem is, I don't want my manuscripts set free! I want them set in type! (double-spaced-grin)

Okay, Okay...

I know it doesn't count when you have your mommy and daddy read your stories, and they say they love them. But for Mother's Day I got around to mailing a copy of March's WOTF entry to them, and my father insisted on getting on the phone and telling me it was the best thing I've ever written. That he felt compelled to drive to the end to find out what was going to happen to these people.

Okay, I can feel a little chuffed about that. Especially when my mother agreed. But you know, a couple of the people who critted the story for me at the Version 1.03 level were saying the same thing. So now I'm beginning to have a good feeling for this story's chances, if not at WOTF then in a commercial market afterward. And I had to print out a copy of the "final" Version 1.04 story for Mrs. Dr. Phil to read, because she'd only read the 1.02 version. While I don't want to inundate my readers/proofers/critters with too many me-too versions of a story, sometimes these people get shortchanged and never see the final product.

Dr. Phil

Okay, it might be sunny and blue sky outside right now, but we've been in a miserable weather pattern for two weeks of rain, rain and more rain. Plus it got cold for a few days. And windy.

I swear I'm growing mushrooms between my toes.

Last Thursday we had driving horizontal heavy rains, 40 mph winds, and I got miserably soaked just walking a few hundred feet from Everett Tower to my vehicle. And I had a raincoat and an umbrella.

When did we get to be such wimps?

I remember traipsing around in the rain all the time as a kid. Now, somehow, I manage to avoid being out in the rain, to the point where I couldn't remember the last time I got soaked like I did on Thursday.

We're not like the English.

As a big fan of U.K. film and actors, I cannot tell you how many times I've seen movies of people walking around in the rain, without a hat or umbrella, and somehow live. Now it's an annoyance when I get rain on the inside of my car door from having the door open to like get in...

Of course I've been sick a lot this year.

And after getting soaked on Thursday, wouldn't you know it? Monday I woke up with a sore throat. And when the coughing started, I began to hack up big blobs of green aliens -- I think the concrete crap which invaded my sinuses a few weeks ago is FINALLY letting loose and sliding down.

Behold The Eye...

Thursday evening, I checked The Weather Channel, just to see a large rotating comma storm rolling across Michigan. The tight eye/center of the storm passed right north of Allendale, leaving a desperate roar of wind to blast across West Michigan. Guess the weather I walked/drove through was "real". Funny thing, Chicago relatives happened to look at The Weather Channel at about the same time, telling a visiting Mrs. Dr. Phil, "Say, isn't the eye of that storm going like right over your house?"

But it's Wednesday now.

And Sudafed is still not stopping the "running waters" of my sinuses, and I'm still coughing up a storm. Even with über-strength Mucinex, I'm still coughing and expectorating. Just how many cubic meters is the interior volume of my big fat head? (grin)

It's The Chair for you!

Monday night I finally left bed and finished sleeping in a living room chair, and I slept soundly there last night. Can't stand having things sliding around inside when I lay my head down, and hacking up great chunks of throat and lung doesn't facilitate Mrs. Dr. Phil's sleep... (grin)

I'll just take it out on the students.

Time to go home now and finish writing the Exams 1's for my classes on Thursday and Friday.

Dr. Phil