Episode 631: Laura's Birthday Picnic

Just got back from Laura's epic birthday picnic, which was still going strong when us Coventry boys (Alex, Dan and me) had to leave to catch the 12 home. Had been there since about 4 pm, so I clearly haven't done much revision today, apart from reading a bit more of the book of quotations I mentioned yesterday. Am going to finish that off once I finish posting this entry! Feeling a lot less worried about examinations now, having just worked out that even in my worst-case scenario, I probably will still get a First overall for the year, just barely. This is assuming I get as low as 70 for LL209 overall, which I think is tremendously unlikely even if the examination I sat for a couple of weeks ago won't get as good a mark as I'd aimed for, and do averagely for both upcoming papers, which is entirely possible, given how ill-prepared I actually am at this point. Ah well, it'll sort itself out somehow. Our landlord says we can leave our stuff in the house at our own risk over the summer, so that's a really important thing sorted out. Also managed to sort out our Internet situation with Virgin, which is now getting terminated when it should be, with no extra charge.

Anyway, rejections have been trickling in over the past week or so, but I've stuck to my resolution about not sending stuff out until I'm actually done with work for the year. With the benefit of some distance from the work, gained by the simple passage of time since that last frenzied round of submissions, as well as the self-awareness prompted by some of my recent reading that my desire to see my work published is in danger of becoming a goal for its own sake, and thereby displacing the actual desire to write, I can now see that some of the pieces are just not good, and while the others are decent, I shouldn't feel like finding them a home automatically equals a validation of their quality. Don't get me wrong here, as I'm grateful to all the editors that have accepted my work in the past. I just think that I've succumbed to the temptation to view my acceptance/rejection ratio as a judgement on the value of my work in general. There is a correlation, certainly, but it's by no means meant to be an absolute pronouncement. Randomly, all this is probably going to make for an interesting series of posts when I take up my guest blogging stint at Incwriters. Probably should write those out in advance, given how busy I'll be while on attachment. Add one more to the list of things to do right after finishing on Monday...