Today wasn’t exactly like yesterday, but close enough that it raises questions about loops in the space-time continuum. Or maybe that’s just the Star Trek I watched this evening talking.
I spent a lot of the day thinking about Kaleidotrope, about maybe doing another three issues (instead of two) again next year, about maybe changing up how I split those issues across the twelve months to more evenly distribute them (something like January, May, and September), and about how doing four issues a year would probably kill (or at least bankrupt) me, even if right now it seems like maybe I have enough accepted material to fill all four. The sensible thing might just be to re-institute a reading period, a set time for when I’m open and closed to new submissions. The slush pile, while constant, is manageable, but I’m hesitant to accept new stories that I won’t be able to print for a year and a half or longer. (The next two issues, regardless of when they appear, are definitely full, with a third near-approaching.) Cutting off submissions for a little while — I’m thinking maybe July to October — could give me the breathing room I need.
Anyway, that’s what constitutes excitement this Thursday — unless you count the couple of taxis that came marginally close to hitting me this afternoon, and the drivers who gave me dirty looks for getting in the way of their illegal turns or running red lights. Heck, yesterday, a van rode up on the sidewalk just a few feet from me, when the driver got tired of waiting for the cars in front of him to make a left turn. Of course, things could be worse. According to my Forgotten English desk calendar, in the 1800s, New York City was rife with “herds of free-roaming local swine.” To wit:
“I had hoped to find on my return from Canada that this public nuisance, by means of papers and strictures of different authors, had been abated, but was disappointed on finding that it was as great as ever. The lawyers and judges dare not prosecute negligent herdsmen with existing laws and many people have conspired to transgress them. They, like gentlemen of other professions, are the creatures of the mob and have not the hardihood to offend it by rigorous adherence to their duty.”
So, no cholera-spreading pigs, which is always good. But also not much else. I’m glad, at least, that tomorrow’s Friday.