I'm in the catbird seat, and I want to stay there. My editor's a legend and she loves me. Fingers, sooooo crossed, I'm surprised you can't hear tendons snapping.

Woo and hoo! My manuscript (already published columns and essays, so no big whoop) is gathering dust while I'm preoccupied trying to launch a magazine. Blech.

Perkins, same editor told me that they wouldn't look at people like Hemingway and du Maurier today ( that being 1991 or thereabouts); too hard to (get this) "niche-market" them.

I destroyed the sequel rather than let them have it, put the book I was working on (it happened to be Weaver) in a drawer, and walked away for nine years.

Victor, why is it gathering dust? Is it done? If so, why not submit, and get it off your plate and let your agent worry about it?

That must have been hard, and scary, Deb, but rewarding at the same time, even though it's a shame you were kept away from writing ( or at least publishing) for several years.

Not so much scary as just a kind of cold little "screw it, I know I'm good but if they want crap so they know where on the shelf to put me, they can kiss every nook and cranny of my girly arse" feeling. I let it go on way too long, though.

Any techies out there? I'm trying to load a picture to Peroplesforum and I don't know how to shrink it; I keep coming up with Big Giant Head. Brrrr.

Email it me, deb. Do you mean shrunk in terms of scale? Give me rough size ideas and I'll do it in Photoshop.

kewl! I'll email you the one that's up there now (perfect size) and the one I want (waaaay bigger); they're both photoshopped but Nic's the tech, and he's in San Jose working on a deadlin and I'm home in Bhagdad by the Bay. So, incoming momentarily. The smaller one is the one that's the right size.

Profile addy?

Edit: AHA! Never mind, sweetie - Nic just emailed me and he's shrinking it. This is why we've been married 20 years come August. He Knows Things.

Deb--eep! Creepy and sensuous.

Not that you need convincing at this point, but I'm another American saying that "lay" is wrong and weird and wrong and wrong.

I think "lay" is a verb. I think it's something fowl do when reproducing, and I think it's a jolly bit of slang for mad funky sex, preferably dirty and quick.

I must bury the memory of those copy editors.

And here is where Beverly reveals the gaps in her eddication, because she knows what it is and how it works but can't remember what to call it.

"Lay" is a verb, but it's used differently than lie.

"You can lay that object on the table. You can lay yourself on that table, too, but you'd probably be more comfortable if you laid in bed. Just lie down."