Finally Friday
Today was busy.
I responded to all the submissions to Y2K Quarterly this afternoon. Last year I would pick the top dozen or so best works. However, this year I'm using Duosuma for submission management which makes it much easier to sort who my yes/no/maybe's are. Some stuff is an instant "no" because it's off topic, or bad taste, or over the word limit. Some stuff is an instant "yes" because it's just really good. Then the hard part is the "maybe" section.
The "maybe" section is what I have to sit and weigh the pros and cons of accepting a piece or not. I'll have two pieces to choose from of equal quality, which means it comes down to my personal preference. I am an unreliable authority on quality. Often I'll have 95% of the submissions sorted and bash my head against the wall for the last two spots on the list. This year I've been doing a Top 8 for each issue to give it a MySpace flavor but also to make it a little more competitive.
Asking people to submit work from a very specific time period that they may or may not be old enough to remember keeps the submission list manageable. Bigger magazines have to put submission caps and time limits on their calls. Still, the work that I get sent to me is phenomenal and better than I could ever do.
Now that's out of the way I can focus on the last week of school for the kids. They each had some manner of awards program, banquet, water day, field trip, etc every day this week so it's been a lot to keep up with. Next week the oldest graduates High School so that's our main focus right now.
The beef stock for my pho experiment has been cooking all day and is now cooling on the stove. It's going in the fridge overnight and then finished up tomorrow afternoon to be ready in time for dinner.
But I'm done with this week, heading to bed early.
(I may or may not have ordered a second case of FF play booster boxes.)