L’esprit d’escalier

So, if you haven’t been privy to recent qq’ing, I’ll say it here:  rejected, again.

And again, a very nice, personal rejection, with the encouraging “We hope to see more from you!” at the end, so I’m trying not to woe-is-me too much.  I knew it was a long-shot, and that in both cases the places I submitted to don’t publish a whole truckload of flash fiction.  They’re also my shoot-for-the-stars places, where if I ever do see my name, I’ll probably leave my computer connected permanently to that webpage, frame my monitor and hang it on the wall.  (Yes, I realize getting ~$50 for flash fiction doesn’t quite cover the cost of a new system or even, in some cases, a picture frame, but still.  Worth it.)

Anyway, that leaves me with a couple of options: resubmit elsewhere, or rework the story.  Now, logic says that I’ve only been rejected twice, so I ought to keep plugging along and see if I can find it a home.  However, both editors said something similar: I don’t do enough that’s new with the story.  There’s part of me trying to see what other angle I might take with it to make it stronger, fresher, but at the moment I don’t see what I could do to fix it.

I can run myself around in circles over it all day (like I have for the past two), or pick a plan and get on it.  The best answer, I suppose, is to keep submitting and look at it now and again to see if a good idea for a rewrite comes to me in the meantime.

This is, at least, good practice for shopping Nin around.  It’s getting closer and closer to done.  Go us!

I walked from Park Street instead of South Station this morning.  If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have seen the memorial to Bob Wright in the window of the Park Street Church.

I never had a conversation with him, outside of exchanging waves in the mornings or afternoons as I rushed to and from the train, but seeing him there on the corner with his signs and his welcoming smile never failed to pull me out of a sour mood after a bad commute.

There’s a very sweet tribute to him here, from a blogger who did what I was always too shy to do: strike up a conversation with the man who wanted everyone to smile.

While I stood there, reading one of his essays that his friends had placed in the window, another woman came up beside me.  We exchanged sighs instead of smiles and went on our separate ways.

There’s a memorial for him tomorrow at 12:15.  I think I’ll be going.

They’ve disabled embedding, so you have to go clicky.

I cannot wait for this movie.   This was the very first book I read when I started my current job.  I don’t think words can express how exciting it was to be here during the summer of 2002, watching this book we all loved so very much just… take off.  It was this crazy magical synergy of publisher love and bookseller love and author love* and reader love, all lifting this book up to the heights it so fully deserved.

If you haven’t read The Lovely Bones yet, by the by, hie thee to your local independent bookstore and pick up a copy.  Don’t wait for the movie.

(*Thank you, Anna Quindlen)