Appearance/disappearance

Hello again. I know it's been a while.

I read the Snowblog every day, sometimes a couple of times a day, and I communicate with the Snowbookers quite often because they're friendly and smart. I finally decided to submit something to the Snowcase, an innovation of Emma's that I think is quite good. Mine is #37 (thirty-seven!? in a row?) and it's a few hundred words of AE. Enjoy.

Still haven't written. Still getting rejections.

I've decided to shut down 10X10X10 at the end of the year. If anyone waiting for a response from me is reading this, please accept my humble apologies, but I seem to have had a psychological block against logging in to that email account for the past several weeks. I feel like a jerk. Please forgive me.

Before 2007 wanes into 2008, I will publish one issue, send acceptance or rejection notices to everybody in my inbox, and possibly publish another issue depending on how much good stuff is in my inbox (likely none). Part of the reason I'm shutting down is a simple lack of viable submissions; no one really took notice of the mag, except mostly writers as desperate as me, and that desperation comes with varying levels of talent. Another part is that I wasn't cut out to be an editor for long; I'm too irresponsible, too incautious with the writer's feelings, and too ADD in my desires to dedicate myself to one thing or another. Still another part is the fact that I'm starting a paralegal program in the spring and will still be working full-time, and there just won't be any time for a flagging e-mag in my life. If I had had a partner to work with me on the project it might have lasted longer, so we could induce each other to read the submissions when one of us wasn't feeling up to it, but that was not to be. I got what I wanted out of the project--seeing what a year's crop of submissions looks like--but that is a bitter compensation, since the mag was intended to be of service to writers, not just to me.

I can't help adding this to my long, long mental list of embarrassing failures in my personal, professional, and writing lives. Likely no one on earth remembers 3/4 of these failures except me, but nevertheless, the flagellation continues. (That sounds like a sequel to a themed horror flick, doesn't it? Monastery of Death 2: The Flagellation Continues.)

I hope this weekend I will get down to business on the abovementioned embarrassment, but if I don't, I hope I will get down to business on Those Ghosts. There's a publisher, Spinster's Ink, which I think would be pretty good for it, and they accept manuscripts in the length range that Those Ghosts is. I really want to get that work ready for public eyes.

I'm also turning over some essay ideas in my head, and turning over the idea of seeing if I have enough essays for a book (the likely answer is no, not a chance, not for another few years, as all my essays are short). I found another publisher that I think I might try for my essays, collected. It seems too dignified for my musings but we'll see.

Again, 10X10X10 authors, if you're reading this, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I really, truly hate myself for making you wait as long as I have.