Skeletal Grapevine and The Marker's Beginning

January 3, 2007

Today is windy, rainy. The firewood stacked outside the back door is wet and unusable. The sky is gray, cloudy and heavy with its message of more-of-the-same. The grape arbor outside my window looks skeletal, and mummified. Small, shriveled grapes, that even the magpies don't want, lie littered about the floor of the arbor; and the wind continues to blow; and the neighbor's cat sits at the door, looking miserable and lonely.

This is a good day to continue editing the "knife" story (The Marker). This project was begun shortly after Christmas and it should be completed by the end of the month, if not before. Maybe this is the one to put in manuscript form and send off to an agent, or fifty. Word has it the rejection rate, even at the agency level, let alone the publisher level, is massive; still even a rejection of my work would raise it to the next level.