Okay, seriously.

This day can just die in a fire.

I need my Word CD in the worst way. Have I found it yet? Oh, hell no. Have I torn the house apart looking for it? Oh, hell yes.

Behold my adventures in formatting. Same story, different market. They want the Book Antiqua font. Which, WTF, I've never seen a market ask for that ever. And why in the hell, when I've got four different Book Antiqua fonts showing in my Font folder, am I only getting one (and an italicized one at that) to show up on my fonts list in OpenOffice? I THOUGHT OPENOFFICE WAS SUPPOSED TO NOT SUCK. Also, my .rtf formatting is ALL wonky, like, seriously, I don't even know how it got to looking like this. Some of it is double-spaced, some single, some in Times New Roman, some in Courier New. WHAT HAPPENED??? Some has a space between paragraphs.

WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN.

This is the Universe's way of telling me that this story is never ever going to be published EVER no matter how much I love it and think it's one of the best things I've ever written, isn't it?

Screw it. I'm going to bed. Maybe things will look better in the morning. I doubt it, but maybe.

And tomorrow I'm going to load Wordperfect. Because this is ridiculous.

Okay, seriously.

This day can just die in a fire.

I need my Word CD in the worst way. Have I found it yet? Oh, hell no. Have I torn the house apart looking for it? Oh, hell yes.

Behold my adventures in formatting. Same story, different market. They want the Book Antiqua font. Which, WTF, I've never seen a market ask for that ever. And why in the hell, when I've got four different Book Antiqua fonts showing in my Font folder, am I only getting one (and an italicized one at that) to show up on my fonts list in OpenOffice? I THOUGHT OPENOFFICE WAS SUPPOSED TO NOT SUCK. Also, my .rtf formatting is ALL wonky, like, seriously, I don't even know how it got to looking like this. Some of it is double-spaced, some single, some in Times New Roman, some in Courier New. WHAT HAPPENED??? Some has a space between paragraphs.

WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN.

This is the Universe's way of telling me that this story is never ever going to be published EVER no matter how much I love it and think it's one of the best things I've ever written, isn't it?

Screw it. I'm going to bed. Maybe things will look better in the morning. I doubt it, but maybe.

And tomorrow I'm going to load Wordperfect. Because this is ridiculous.

So. Yeah.

I think, for the moment, that the not!Iron Man is going to be in limbo for a bit. The submission guidelines for places that publish such lengthy works are esoteric at best and a pain in the ass at worst (seriously: pick a consistent format for all you publishing people and stick with it. I am not a typesetter, and if you're not even going to pay me for the thing, then why make it such a convoluted process?). I am not so desperate to be published that I'm going to jump through innumerable and ridiculous-to-me hoops to do so--I'll put it up here with a tip jar first, dammit. Probably make more money that way, to be honest.

What I'm going to do instead is work my hiney off on the query for the novelthing, and mention in the letter that I have a novella sequel of sorts that resolves the issue of Alex and Megan's relationship (while whumping Alex, because, hey, why should Ben have all the fun, right?).

Anyway. This day can pretty much die in a fire too, as far as I'm concerned. Nothing overtly horrid has happened yet, but the day is young, right?

*eyes icon* I really should add some blood and bruises to that. Because, yes, that's Alex and Megan. EDIT: is done, and here's the original for your perusal:

So. Yeah.

I think, for the moment, that the not!Iron Man is going to be in limbo for a bit. The submission guidelines for places that publish such lengthy works are esoteric at best and a pain in the ass at worst (seriously: pick a consistent format for all you publishing people and stick with it. I am not a typesetter, and if you're not even going to pay me for the thing, then why make it such a convoluted process?). I am not so desperate to be published that I'm going to jump through innumerable and ridiculous-to-me hoops to do so--I'll put it up here with a tip jar first, dammit. Probably make more money that way, to be honest.

What I'm going to do instead is work my hiney off on the query for the novelthing, and mention in the letter that I have a novella sequel of sorts that resolves the issue of Alex and Megan's relationship (while whumping Alex, because, hey, why should Ben have all the fun, right?).

Anyway. This day can pretty much die in a fire too, as far as I'm concerned. Nothing overtly horrid has happened yet, but the day is young, right?

*eyes icon* I really should add some blood and bruises to that. Because, yes, that's Alex and Megan. EDIT: is done, and here's the original for your perusal: