I was up at 3:30 this morning to catch my flight home, so this will be a rambling mess.  You have been warned.

First, just a quick aside that I don’t think our search engines work very well.  Because the search terms I see that lead to my blog are definitely not search terms meant to find my blog.  Someone who wants to know about stage makeup for car crashes should be able to find that without being diverted here to read a comparison between writing and stage makeup.  And I have no idea what the “mh sex 23” search term was trying to find, but pretty sure it was not this.  And pretty sure my post on what sex is was not the post they thought it was.

(Which also reminds me that I need to stop searching for myself on the Internet and then clicking on the links.  ‘Cause, you know, it makes my hubris a little obvious…)

Second, I want to rant about the flippin’ idiots that think that using eminent domain to seize mortgages is a brilliant idea.  Don’t they understand that the only winners in that scenario are going to be the snake oil salesmen structuring the damned thing???  Here’s the deal–no one has to ever loan anyone money.  For a mortgage, an education, or anything else.  (Thank god they do, because I’d have never had either a house or college without it.)  And if someone does borrow money and then tears the contract into little bits and pieces and says “f you” to the person who made the loan, chances are that person won’t loan them money again.  And maybe the homeowners in these scenarios don’t care, because they get to keep their houses and not have to pay for the mortgage that they agreed to, but…who are they going to sell their house to?  What do they think this will do to their property value?  I certainly wouldn’t make a loan in a jurisdiction that I knew was inclined to upend contract law for political reasons.  Or if I did I’d charge a helluva lot for that privilege…And who will that affect if that’s the case?  The homeowners who this plan is designed to save.

But what do I know?  Just seems stupid, stupid, stupid to me.  This idea should’ve died a year ago and yet it’s still kicking around.  Ridiculous.

Ok.  Since this is a writing blog…let’s talk rejection.

I think I’d mentioned before that I keep a spreadsheet so I can see my short story rejections.  I have the stories across the top in chronological order and the markets down the left side in alphabetical order.  And I use a red box with an x for form rejections and  blue box with a star for personal rejections.  I recently added a green box for stories that second rounded with either an x or a star based on whether the final rejection was a personal or not.

Well, earlier this week I was reminded that there’s another thing that would be useful to track–higher tier rejections.  You know the ones.  They’re a form.  But a nice form rejection.  A “we really liked this story, send us more” rejection.  The type you almost mistake for a personal.

But they’re not a personal.  They’re just an especially positive form.  But I really, really don’t want to put a red box and an x for those.  Because they’re different from the “dear god why did you send us this drivel, but we’re too polite to say that” form rejections.

At the end of the day it’s all just rejection.  But when you’re trying to slog through until you get that first acceptance, it helps to be able to see your progress somehow.

I don’t want to list that recent higher-tier form as a form.  But I also don’t want ten different colors on my grid to the point that it’s just colorful nonsense.

You also have the markets that say send more.  Some really mean it.  (They even say please.  Not in the for politeness’ sake way, but in the sincere way.)  Others say send more, but you wonder if they say that to everyone it’s so mechanical.  (And on stories that you now realize sucked and wonder why on earth someone would read that and want to see more of it, so you can’t possibly believe that they actually meant it when they said please send more.)

It’s all crazy-making.  Useful.  ‘Cause, like I said, you have to find something to keep you going.  But you could waste days on this stuff.

And that would be time spent not writing.  Which is BAD.  Because the only way to get to the point where the type and flavor of the rejection doesn’t matter is to keep writing until you’re so good that people buy your stories just because they’re by you.

(At which point you will have a whole new host of problems–the emperor has no clothes type of problems.)

(One can only wish.)

Ok.  I am off to walk through the rest of my day like the sleep-deprived zombie I am.