Heya folks. This is the only thread that I have time to quickly skim through (will have to skip like a mad thing in the rest of the threads tomorrow when I get home), because I am stuck on my BIL's computer via dial-up internet in Buffalo at the moment.

In catching-up news: Erika, I really enjoyed your piece. Thanks for sharing it! Susan, I'm so sorry about the rejection letter, but listen to Deb and others. I am certain you will find another agent who gets your book and who will nurture it as it deserves. Deb, I'm so sorry you've been sick this week, and I hope you're feeling better. Also, my MIL is officially ordering all of your books for the library she works for....assuming they still have a library. The current budget in this county is going to eliminate funding for the libraries.

Can you believe it? The locals are massing a huge local campaign to save their libraries. They think that the country commissioner is probably playing a game of chicken and doesn't really mean to follow through with this...but dear god. This is insane.

In MEME news, I wanted to share exciting (to me, at least) news! I got inspired yesterday to revisit one of my personal essays on my life as a teacher (I've been slowly working on a series that might one day become a compilation I'll try to market), and I think I've mostly finished it! I can't attach or send it now without the internet, obviously, but I'm looking for beta readers. It's about 1250 words or so, so not too long.

Any takers? If interested, I'll likely send it to you tomorrow afternoon or evening. No rush in feedback.

ETA: Warning--it is a sad essay.

Would love to read it, Kristin.

Kristin, by all means send, but I may not get to it for a day. Just back from reading and have to go back out and I am dizzy and mildly out of it.

In re the library funding? Salinas - 125,000 residents, home of John Steinbeck - is about to become the largest city west of the Rockies without a library. No money to fund it.

I wonder if Ahnuld has an economoc recovery plan for it?

Feh.

Kristin, may I try it too?

*popping in with thanks, news etc*

Deb: I'm sorry to hear you've been sick. I wanted to thank *you*(edit) and Deena (and others who I am sure I am forgetting) for the beta-reading waaaay back in May... While nothing has happened with 'Senior's Day' yet in terms of publication, it got me *edit* recommended (by CW prof) for an editing assistant job on the U of W CW journal, which I got, and it turns out one of the two editors pulled a disappearing act over the summer so working opposite schedules of the remaining editor (I was full-time days at daycare, she was full-time nights elsewhere) I trained myself on crazy Pagemaker worked 70 hour weeks and we managed to get the journal done and re-vamped... As of Septemeber I've been promoted to co-editor... you buffistas helped get me there!

Also, the drabbling is and continues to be fantastic and I intend to join in as soon as I get a better handle on school... The 70 hour work week summer seemed to wreak havoc with my immune system and I've had mono it seems for months now...

attributing all the typos to *Yee*.. too much 18th Century Seminar...

Whoa! Brynn, take a deep breath, girl. Congrats on all the good stuff, but boo on the mono; I've had it and it is zero fun.

Victor, all I could think of as I clicked through was "Love in the Time of Cholera." You know, you've put rather succinctly and clearly what a precarious place the traditional writers' position is in. I nodded all through the piece, and I don't think you've at all lost your mind. I'm only surprised you were able to be lucid and well-spoken throughout.

Lately? I tend to break down in tears or foam at the mouth. Nothing much in between. So thank you for being clear and, well, clear.

Deb, we want to hear about the reading, how it went, and how you survived it.

erika, did I say I loved your most recent entry here? I did.

Kristin, I'd be happy to read your nonfiction piece, if you'd care to share it. Profile addy works.

And Brynn, congratulations!

Whoa! Brynn, take a deep breath, girl.

Deb: Yeah, it's the school/work/school isolation... Things tend to explode out of me. Sorry. Yeah, I must have slept 40 hours this weekend and I still feel like I just peeled myself from the underside of a tanker.

Erika, I'm going to be honest, because I respect you and like you: You are a fantastic writer. Your brain is clearly very fast and very busy, and I would love to have a day or so to play with it. But, when I read something you wrote, I feel like I'm in the middle of a carnival -- allusions and metaphors and wordplay and sex and shiny shiny ideas get thrown at me so fast that it burns me out, and I end up missing the signal for all the ... other signals that aren't the main one, if that makes sense.

I don't know what the cure is. There may not even be a problem outside my head. from where i'm sitting, I sincerely believe that your writing would be better if it were sparer, if you took your 15 ideas and ruthlessly chopped them down to 8 or 10. For example, in the piece you just posted, you could easily lose some or all of these things: the age difference, spring break, free cone day, exotic fevers, and John's SAT scores. Not don't put those in the story, you understand. Just they don't need to be right there.

Again, I offer this with all respect, and with full knowledge that someone who barely writes at all maybe shouldn't be advising someone like you. But I'm hoping you'll take it for what it's worth.

Heh. Lyra likes it spare; generally, so do I. In fact, erika will tell you that I'm usually the voice saying "no, that's you, not that character, in that little bit over there! No parentheticals in fiction! Lose it lose it!"

There are times, though, when the really fast clap of metaphors is precisely what's needed.