So I woke up around noon today to find another rejection sitting in my inbox. Not the one I'm waiting on, though -- this one was for a poem that I'd kinda/sorta forgotten that I'd submitted. Which makes it worse. I wasn't expecting it, you see, so it's like this thing blindsides me from left field and says, "Hey, by the way, you suck!" Except it didn't actually say that. It didn't really say anything, being a standard rejection. (It did contain a personalized parenthetical -- or I assume it was, owing to the typo -- although this only said, "Trry us again, B. Thanks." Which is pretty much what the rejection said, minus the "this work was not selected" bit.) And this lack of commentary, I've found, also somehow makes rejections worse. Yesterday's rejection was for a piece that I still think is the best story I've ever written, and it was the second rejection I received in response to that story. It said nothing; standard reply. The first rejection, however, did have brief comments of a rather unflattering nature. But this was somehow comforting, since not only do I disagree with them entirely, but several persons to whom I've shown the story have had encouraging things to say. So then, at least, I could respond (i.e., to myself, not by way of nasty direct replies) by saying, "Philistine!" or something to that effect, and I didn't take this rejection very hard at all -- the rejection came on a Friday, and the story was in the mail en route to another editor on the following Monday. And even if I had agreed with them, or seen anything worthy of note in them, I could've sat down and revised the story in an attempt to make it better. But this telling me nothing...tells me nothing. And it's kind of hard to take. (more...)

What the topic says, plus a sigh. 🙁 Just waiting on one more now...

Since I'm finally getting around to responding to the C.S. Lewis quote that Dawn left in "Go Wes", I thought it only appropriate that we start off the post with a bad pun in the topic. Other recent meditations inspired by Dawn's post can be read here. (Also, if you scroll up, you can see my completed Krang drawing, which I posted at the end of the previous post. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. Look at that smile! Excellent.) (more...)

I got a bit of sleep. Feel a little better now. I'm not sure how substantial that last post was, and I wanted to do another post, so here, an excerpt on some loftier topics (I think/hope) -- not necessarily loftier than the last post, but loftier than M&Ms. It originally appeared as a response to someone on a Buffy posting thread, who basically reprimanded me for being overly analytical in my episode reviews. Enjoy! And at the end of the excerpt...I've got a surprise for you. (more...)

Brief notes: Finished yet another SC feature; began drawing Krang (looks pretty good so far...); made significant headway in the story by realizing that the last part that I wrote needed to be excised. Every line that I write follows the one before it, so if a series of lines are off, like walking up a staircase in an abandoned building, eventually I reach a boarded up door. Now that I've discovered that, I'm heading back down the staircase, and hopefully things will go more smoothly. Also, I've had this quiz window open for ages, so let's post the results and get it over with...

what flavor pocky are you?
[c] sugardew

That said, it's time to give a proper reply to Dawn Eden's recent blog entry entitled "Go Wes". I really like the title. 🙂 I may end up addressing the quotation from C.S. Lewis during the course of this response -- and in any case, religion will certainly come up -- but I want to begin my reply on a more personal note. I've been up all night, so it may not be the most coherent of pieces...but it should be readable. Hopefully I'll say something interesting, at least... (more...)