Slow Rejection Week

I'm still waiting to hear from AGNI, Tin House, and a couple of other magazines that I'm blanking on right now. It's to the point where I can't even remember where I submitted anymore. If I were to receive a rejection slip from Bass Angler Magazine tomorrow, I don't think I'd even be surprised. I'd shrug and say, "I guess they don't like stories about fake astronauts, either," and I'd send that story on to Pro Wrestling Insider.


I've taken a break from essays and short stories this week to finally start on my novel--I feel completely pretentious even saying the word "novel," but I guess that's what it is. It helps that I'm watching DK's cat for the next few weeks while she's overseas; sitting around in my dissertation director's house every day is excellent motivation. The other day I was sitting on the porch with the kitty and sort of drifting off, when a voice from the heavens shouted, "Get to work!" Well, ok, it was a voice coming over the loudspeakers at Leon High School, but I obeyed it all the same.

So I'm working on the novel.(Still sounds pretentious--I'm going to call it the "chain gang," as in "I spent all day yesterday working on the chain gang." Then people will just think I'm either a hardened criminal or a Sam Cooke fan.)And I need a good monster name. Any suggestions? Right now I'm calling it "the creeper" as a placeholder, because I want something with that feel, but that can't actually be the name, as it is a) already a Scooby-Doo villain, and b)what the kids are calling sleazy guys. And my monster is not sleazy, just hungry for the bones of children. But in a funny way.

Hugo is working on suggestions, too, but he's stumped.