Rejections Piling up like the New England Snow

More rejections! Mostly form letters, actually, not even letters but cards. Another personal letter sent, another anonymous form letter (the gas bill is more personal) received. I find myself developing attitude. A small publisher wrote that if I hadn't sold the Wisconsin book within the next year (fat chance of that), to send it to them. Found a funny blog on Publisher's Marketplace called "Throw novel from the train." Throw agent from the train. Throw self from the train.

Last night I was part of a group tour of a local prison, a county jail, not a state or federal prison, so most of the inmates had drug or alcohol problems that had led to their crimes. Most looked clean cut and 100 % normal. Bad decisions and impulse control problems. Hmmm. Haven't we discussed this before? 80% of the inmates return. Some young ladies (a figure of speech) were being processed. Must have been hookers. Very cool, insoucient. Fresh looking. Dressed normally. They would be hauled off to Framingham-MCI which is the woman's prison. Apparently female jailbirds are a breed apart. Squabling raptors excelling a verbal abuse but pretty good in a brawl. The mens' prison is a clean well-lighted place, and there are probably many worse places to be. But it is what it is.

It is what it is. That's the latest saying these days in the business world, which seems a lot more dysfunctional than the prison. Corporate America is a pretty weird place right now. Sarbanes-Oxley is making IT a living hell. Thank you, Ken Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, Andrew Fastnow and all the jerks at World Com and all those businesses where they cooked the books like they were a pot of chili. The auditors are so freaked out that someone might do something bad that it's becoming impossible to do anything at all.

Tuesday night PBS had a pledge night, and they sweetened the pot with a show about The Mamas and The Papas. This might be making its 10th appearance, but I almost never watch TV. Such great songs! What good memories. The sixties and the summer of love and all those groovy times just flowed right into the living room, a blast of sunshine in a dreary winter week.

Winter really sucks by now. No other way to put it. My car is a mess of salt and frozen ice. Gloves almost worn out. Sick of heavy sweaters and bundling up and all that filthy snow, although it keeps getting replentished so the filth has to creep back and then we get another storm dumping on us. Supposed to snow tomorrow and Saturday. Maybe it's time to make another pot of beef stew and send out a few more queries. Time to suck it up. Somebody else now has a similarly named blog. Wouldn't you just know it!