Not wanted on voyage
Mar. 24th, 2013 02:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceFor the avoidance of doubt: if I ask for your honest opinion, what I'm really after is unstinting, wholesome and well-deserved praise, 'k? I don't like criticism, it turns out, and I really don't like rejection.
Which may be ironic, given the career I've wilfully engaged in for lo these thirty-six years, but there it is. Maybe it's why I'm still at it: still aimed for that golden land where nobody ever turns me down...
It is, of course, more complicated than that. My recent rejection from Analog made me almost as happy as the one I had from the New Yorker a couple of years ago: thoughtful, nurturing, complimentary and a wide-open door for the next time. That really lifted me up.
On the other hand, it is conspicuous that I never submitted again to the New Yorker, because how could I beat that? They're never going to actually, y'know, accept me. Right now I don't suppose anybody is actually going to do that ever again; and the thoughtful, nurturing, complimentary rejection with wide-open door that I just received from A N Other big venue has really kinda gutted me. Which it's stupid to let it get to me this way, but there it is. Still tender, after all these years.
On the subject of not-so-tender, I have been pruning the sage and eyeing the rosemary in a strategic kind of way. My rough plan is to go boldly at the back and lightly at the front and see which serves better - but I'm doing neither yet, because it's all-over flowers just now and the bees are loving it and I love the bees, so. When it stops blooming, then I'll get at it. (The internet has so far advised me exclusively to prune in the winter, when it's dormant; in the spring, just after flowering; and in midsummer. Thanks, internet...)
Which may be ironic, given the career I've wilfully engaged in for lo these thirty-six years, but there it is. Maybe it's why I'm still at it: still aimed for that golden land where nobody ever turns me down...
It is, of course, more complicated than that. My recent rejection from Analog made me almost as happy as the one I had from the New Yorker a couple of years ago: thoughtful, nurturing, complimentary and a wide-open door for the next time. That really lifted me up.
On the other hand, it is conspicuous that I never submitted again to the New Yorker, because how could I beat that? They're never going to actually, y'know, accept me. Right now I don't suppose anybody is actually going to do that ever again; and the thoughtful, nurturing, complimentary rejection with wide-open door that I just received from A N Other big venue has really kinda gutted me. Which it's stupid to let it get to me this way, but there it is. Still tender, after all these years.
On the subject of not-so-tender, I have been pruning the sage and eyeing the rosemary in a strategic kind of way. My rough plan is to go boldly at the back and lightly at the front and see which serves better - but I'm doing neither yet, because it's all-over flowers just now and the bees are loving it and I love the bees, so. When it stops blooming, then I'll get at it. (The internet has so far advised me exclusively to prune in the winter, when it's dormant; in the spring, just after flowering; and in midsummer. Thanks, internet...)