Barring disaster, I’m going to put the final touches on the space vampire story

tonight (I’m really beginning to hate that shorthand title), and drop

it in the mail tomorrow. It’s extremely important to me that I meet

this semi-arbitrary deadline. Why? The Asimov’s response

to my first story is due Friday, and when the bad news arrives, I need

to have another faint hope of publication already in transit. Until I

publish, this will be my life–a desperate need to submit something

every five weeks, if only to keep hope alive.

Oh, and my 10-year high school reunion just got scheduled for Oct. 30,

so now I’ve got the added pressure of trying to make something of

myself in three months in order to impress people I was never really

that fond of in the first place. Hooray for motivation.