It's getting to be that dark, fretful time again, but I am trying to keep from being both too dark or too fretful. I am, as I mentioned, sleeping alot, having odd dreams about bloody, firey car wrecks and our house on Pennsylvania, which in the latest, has been remodeled into a glass fronted condo. No matter what they are, they are pervaded by an overreaching sense of uneasyness. I am tired of trying to convince myself of things in them. It's the weather, and maybe the fact that I cannot seem to get warm anywhere but the studio, which is usually way too hot. The apartment is too drafty with all those windows, the bus subject to chilly air coming in the doors, and the library tends to vascillate between extremes, which this week means cooler than it should be. My skin feels rough and dry, like I might just flake off and blow away bit by bit.
I am making steady progress on books, and should have another set of galleys ready to go by the time the ones in this batch are all up. And I just need another pass and to add the blurbs to the photography/poetry collaboration. I still feel like I am running out of time though, even though, if this year is like last year, I will stil be getting this year's books out in January. I should just accept it. It doesn't look like the situation is looking any better for next year. I am a little over half way through submissions and have already earmarked a good twenty for "yes". I accept far too much, but too many are just too good to pass up. We are small enough at this point that I am keeping it at about a 10% acceptance rate, which seems sort of high, but I would say we get far less absolute "no" manuscripts and many more "maybe"s. Or it might be that we are still small enough that word of mouth brings the right people in, or maybe submitters are just more savvy these days about what editors may or may not like. And I am pretty open to many things stylistically, so that probaby has an effect as well. It creates more work for me in the end, but it's good work, worthy work, and is probably a better use for my time than most of the things I get up to these days.;)
