Rob and I made sushi today, which is our New Year’s tradition. I’m off to work on the boat for a wedding, which will be the first time in years that I’ve stayed up until midnight. I’m strangely looking forward to it.

Happy New Year!

On Livia Llewellyn’s blog she goes through her year end summary and then talks about rejections in exactly the same terms that I think about them.

Rejected:

I don’t keep stats for rejections. In fact, I have a shocking admission: I don’t even keep my rejections. Listen, I spent twenty years being rejected by THOUSANDS of casting directors. It’s not like I have a huge list of all the people who didn’t put me in their play or movie because of A, B, or C – I did my piece, was told “no”, and moved on without feeling the need to memorialize it or keep some kind of “souvenir” of my rejection. It should be the same principle for writing – at least for me, if no one else I know of.

If the agent or editor asks me to submit again in the future, I make a reference in a spreadsheet. I do keep track of where I send projects to and if/when they return, so I don’t send it to the same place twice (hey, I’m forgetful, it could happen). And if someone gives me good editorial advice, I take note of it. But keeping a box of actual rejection papers? I have a box labeled “Contracts”. I toss the rejections in the trash. I have no idea how many rejections I’ve received. It’s not relevant. Saying “I have ‘X’ total sales” is more important than saying “I have ‘X’ total rejections”. I know this attitude goes against everything most writers believe about rejections, but there it is.

I’ve kept a couple of good personal rejections, but more because the content is useful than for a scrapbook. I can tell you that I had five rejections before my first sale. I could add up all the places that stories have been, because I do keep track of that to avoid sending a story to the same place twice, but I don’t think it matters. Thank you, Livia, for saying it so well.

It’s not too late to get a subscription to Shimmer so you can have a copy of Jay Lake’s limited edition, signed chapbook. We’ve only printed sixty-six of these. You know you want to hold that glossy color cover and turn the lovely archival quality recycled paper interior pages. Think about settling into a chair by the fire and admiring the original interior illustration by Chrissy Ellsworth.

You know you want it. All you have to do is subscribe to Shimmer by the end of the year. The offer is good for electronic and hard copy subscriptions. That’s right. This could be yours, plus four issues of quality fiction for as little as twelve dollars. For seventeen, you could be holding the glossy cover of Shimmer as each new issue comes out.

Go on. Resolve to read more small press in 2007. Subscribe now.

I’ve had three different people ask me how my day was, to which I answered “fine.” They then pressed for details expecting, no doubt, me to regail them with tales of puppets gone bad. Alas. I’m working on a spreadsheet, which I explained. Two of the people did not believe me when I explained that it is deathly boring.

For those unbelievers, here is one of the formulas that I’m writing.

IF(AND(B2< =5;OR(C3<=5;C3=11;C2=1);OR(B3<=5;B3=11));"in January - May, and November";IF(AND(B2<6;B3>5;B3<11;OR(C2=1;AND(C3>5;C3<11)));”in June-October”;IF(AND(B3=12;OR(C3=12;C2=1));”in December”;IF(AND(B2=6;OR(C3=5;C3=10;C2=1);OR(B3=5;B3=10));”in May and October”;IF(AND(B2>6;B2<9;B3>4;B3<11);”in May – October”;IF(OR(B2=9;B2=10);”year round.”;IF(AND(OR(AND(Formulas.C3>5;Formulas.C3<10);C2=1);AND(B3>5;B3<10));”in June-September”;”THE MONTH FIELD DOES NOT MATCH THE DATE ENTERED”)))))))

Tell me that you don’t want one of the crayons carved by Pete Goldlust. Sure… I don’t know what I’d do with one, but they are so pretty.

I just found out that the Doctor Who anthology I’m in has been officially announced on the Big Finnish website. Doctor Who: Destination Prague is available for pre-orders and will come out in March, 2007. The cover image isn’t up yet, but Steven Savile, editor, says that it should be out any day now. I’ll post it when it is.

The other day, a mysterious package appeared at my doorstep. Suspicious, I kicked it a few times. Nothing happened. I bent over, took a look at the return mailing address and it was from one “Mary Robinette Kowal.”

Perhaps you’re curious about what’s inside.

“When I can’t sleep of a night, I count my blessings. I’d rather do that than count sheep.”

–Grandma Jackson, Christmas Day 2006
101 years old

I’m not often jealous of my friends, but in this case… oh yes. Thank heavens, Santa has already come, or I’d wind up on the naughty list for my covetous thoughts.

In the Sunday New York Times, I learned that the original stop-motion Rudolph and Santa puppets are on exhibit at the Center for Puppetry Arts. That gave me an immediate, “ooo! neat!” reaction, and then I read this…

For restoration, he turned to another stop-motion studio, Screen Novelties, in Los Angeles. There, Robin Walsh, a puppet maker, ordered kid mohair for Santa’s beard, consulted museum restoration experts for the best ways to clean painted wood and grimy wool, and discovered, by freezing frames from “Rudolph,” that Santa’s mouth had once been painted. The broken lead wires in the puppets’ arms and legs also needed to be replaced.

The hardest thing, Ms. Walsh said, was getting over her fear of handling the puppets.

“I was holding my childhood in my hands,” she said.

Robin and I were at the Center at the same time. She’s gone on to work with Ray Harryhausen and do other mind-numbingly cool things.

To read the whole article, you have to be logged into the New York Times, but it’s pretty amazing and worth it.

I’d come and sing on your front porch, but most of you live to far away, so here’s my Christmas music station on Pandora. Merry Christmas!

I finally managed to get a Christmas tree yesterday on my way home from work. I’d tried to find a place that had a tabletop tree and finally gave up. I went back to one of the places I’d visited before and purchased a regular tree and had them cut it down to a three foot tree. We then wrestled it into the pannier of my bicycle.

Although I’m brightly reflective, the tree obscured my rear light. I unclipped the light from the bike and attached it to the top of the tree where the star goes. I wound up having to bike side streets because the tree stuck out far enough from the bike that it was thwacking parked cars as I rode along.

It’s now decorated with a nice assortment of presents under it. We’re going to sleep in tomorrow and enjoy a day of rest.

May your Christmas be as joyous.

I have a mild cold that I picked up from the germ factories that come aboard the boat to meet the Cinnamon Bear. It’s not bad, just a scratchy throat and fatigue–although I suppose the fatigue comes from other sources. Anyway, we carol as people are boarding. I enjoy this even though I’m scantily dressed in a fairy costume. What’s interesting about the way my voice functions when ill is that I lose my mid-range.

My speaking voice drops, but usually my head voice stays more or less clear. I can’t blend the two ranges at all. Now, this is a problem if I’m trying to belt Christmas Carols, (which uses the chest voice and blending) so I dealt with it by jumping up to my upper end and avoiding the midrange. So here’s me, speaking a couple of steps lower than normal, and then singing high soprano because that’s the only sound I’ve got reliable available. It’s useful to know how one’s voice behaves when sick.

Next time you have a cold, I want you to hum through your range. Start at the low end and hum up to the high end, then back down. Now, with me, my voice drops out on the way up the scale, and then comes back again. On the way down, I have more notes. It usually happens this way for me. I’ve been able to use this to compete, perform or audition by either picking pieces that fit the “sick” range or by adapting the work that I doing.

For a reading, I pitch my narrator higher than usual, to get above my dead zone. I save my suddenly deep low end for the male characters. It’s the only time I can really do a convincing male voice. I’ve always wished I were an alto because of that. It seems like it would be sooooo much more useful for voice work.

What does your voice do when you’re sick?

Richard Horton does a summary of the different magazines, and my name actually shows up in his summary of Strange Horizons. I’m all the way at the end under “strong work.” It doesn’t give the title of the story, but since the only one that I’ve sold to Strange Horizons is “Portrait of Ari,” it’s pretty easy to figure out which one he was thinking about. I’m very pleased.

As Gigi says, irresistible silliness.

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Entirely Miss Reverend Lady Mary the Coherent of Kirkby Overblow Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

I just found out that George Latshaw passed away.

When I was in college, I got an internship at the Center for Puppetry Arts. To add to my good fortune, I was assigned to the cast of Wizard of Oz, directed by George Latshaw. I had already read his book, The Complete Book of Puppetry, and was stunned to be able to work with him.

He was kind, witty, charming and wouldn’t let me get away with anything less than my best. My work in puppetry was so strongly shaped by the month under his tutelage, that I can’t even begin to dissect what George taught me from my understanding of the art form. The following summer, I went to the Eugene O’Neil Theater Center for the National Puppetry Conference and spent ten intense days working on George’s Bonsai Boy. I remember him saying that he’d spent his whole life with one foot in puppetry and one foot in theater and that he wanted to be able to stand with both feet under him. My God, that connected with me and still does.

The thing about George that remains so inspiring is that he was constantly engaged with life and pushing the boundaries of the art form. I’ve said before that I wanted to be George Latshaw when I grew up; by that I mean that I want to maintain that childlike enthusiasm and interest in life. Oh. Oh, I miss him.