Ray's House of Love Vol III

Pandora! Nice to see you.

Hm, what have we been up to that's amazing? Not much on my end. If the weather cooperates--and we can't yet tell if it will--we're going to Indiana over the long weekend to find and tend Mr. Maryn's maternal grandparents' graves and, time and weather permitting, either go to the beach or visit the state park nearby, which he remembers doing with his grandparents summer after summer. There are only two surviving descendents, none in the area, so it's unlikely anybody's done anything beyond mowing for decades. We're thinking we'll put in a bunch of flower bulbs if that's permitted.

We tried to find the graves once before, but it was cold and Mr. Maryn had hurt his ankle and was only able to hobble around, so we pulled up short. This time the only thing which might stop us is thunderstorms. I've drawn a map of the cemetery so we can mark off the areas as we search them.

Maryn, thinking FindaGrave.com is worthless, since it can't find her people

Aw, nuts! That's what they mean by killing your darlings, I guess.

If you don't have one yet, start a "Deletions" file for things you need to delete from this work but hope to use in something else. Mine's pretty fat.

Maryn, who writes long and edits shorter

Is it time to open the wine yet? Because I cannot face seeking every use of the word then in my WIP to see if I screwed it up according to Loose Id's rules.

I've got no problem conforming to house styles, but it's pretty time consuming. This then business has never bothered any other publisher, but hey, it's their baby, they get to make the rules.

Maryn, who later has to do a pass on which vs. that

I'm sure Komnena will be happy to go over my manuscript finding the many, many places I messed those three up. Right? Right?

Mr. Maryn and I have cancelled our trip to find and tend his grandparents' graves. The day we'd be there, they're predicting thunderstorms, at times severe.

I'd be okay with walking the cemetery in the rain, and soft ground is easier to weed and plant, but thunderstorms? I'll pass.

Maryn, who's been wet and muddy before, but not struck by lightning

Masochism?

I did the editorial passes I most dreaded, both of them, yesterday. I think I corrected all the whiches and thats I'd messed up, and of course I rewrote a buttload of sentences so I didn't have to use either one. Then I tackled then!

I also emailed my editor telling her she'd have this ms. soon. Accountability, yes?

Maryn, up in the night with an owie on her foot

Calieber, hello! I wondered what had become of you.

Acquaintances tell me slow payment can be quite deliberate on the part of some businesses, and just incompetence or understaffing in others. Apparently some businesses operate on the principal that the longer the money owed remains in the businesses' accounts, the better. (Which makes no sense, interest rates being what they are.)

Is it possible for you to add late fees to invoices outstanding after, say, 60 or 90 days, with a notice on each invoice sent that's how it'll be?

Maryn, who would be frustrated, too

That practice might have made sense when interest rates were approaching and occasionally topped ten percent. The more money sitting in the business's account, the more interest it earned, and it could really add up. But with present rates, interest accumulation is so trifling that it's just foolish to delay payment like that.

It's 87 and sticky as hell out. It was so good to walk into AC!

Maryn, who ran a couple of errands

We have annual AC battles. I lose. I'm not a fan of whole-house AC run all summer long. I love having it for the eight to twelve days we have per summer which are like this, but the rest of the time I strongly prefer open windows and fans. However, you can't just turn on central air late in the day when it gets uncomfortable; it can't create the cool quickly, just maintain it. Which sucks.

It costs so much to run that you'd think it'd be worth being mildly uncomfortable for a few hours in the late afternoon, but no-o-o.

Mr. Maryn and I grocery shopped together. He's learning better how it's done and why I do these things which made no sense to him, like grouping things on the grocery list and what order it's in. (Golly gee, think it's related to the order of the store?) I guess he's trainable after all.

Maryn, who complains about him too much, considering how great he is

calieber, allow me to don my mod hat. Stylish, no? It would be perfectly appropriate to add that to the magazine's existing thread in Bewares, Recommendations, and Background Checks, or to start a thread for them if there isn't one.

You want to be careful to state the facts rather than your opinion or theories, but yeah, this is a way to warn others who may be considering submitting to these say non-payers.

Stuff to include:
date of submission
date of acceptance
terms of acceptance--payment now or on publication
date of contract signing, if any
date of publication
dates of invoices
any reasons they've stated for non-payment
the fact that you were never paid

Maryn, removing the mod hat and fluffing her hair