View From the Bushes

It's nice to see that the last few comments about my writing have gotten some comments, even if some were needlessly cruel (Geshin, I'm looking at you). I think the comment about the state of the economy was very astute, although the numbers I'm citing are from a submission which closed in July of 2003. There are a lot of facets to the economy, but I think unemployment rate would be the number that mapped most closely. In the months preceding the MoP open call, unemployment hovered around 6% (with a peak of 6.3% in June) and right now employment is at about 5.4%, according to the BLS. So that's good news for me I guess.

Geshin pointed out that it doesn't really matter how many submissions there are because a) I can't do anything about that (mostly true, but stay tuned for my newest website WoTCNovelOpenCallisaFraud.org) and b) that I should be focusing on the quality of my own submission (also true). Yes, the contest is more of a race than a head-to-head match, but it's a lot easier to get the best "time" if you're racing against a field of 20 than a field of 20,000. I did find out that the contest has gotten pretty wide exposure on most of the main writing boards out there (which I scrupulously avoid, but that's a topic for another day, maybe tomorrow), which will certainly increase the number of submissions. I guess that's bad news...

I don't have any great links today. But I guess them's the breaks. I was, however, impressed by the headline FARK used to announce Anna Kournikova's marriage, "Anna Kournikova's single Dazarova, secretly Wedserlova". That's it for today.

Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross