speed speed dating report: exhausting. utterly buggering. 10 publishers, almost all just right for me, 5 minutes with each. no contract. yet. no one wants short stories. yet they laughed at my extracts. found a new writer friend out of it anyway.

and: newsflash: a publisher who knows the short story writer I'd most like to be (if you know what I mean) says she: the writer: Knows Who I Am! Likes My Stuff! even remembers me from a novella comp she judged (though she didn't choose my piece...)

that was the biggest boost I got out of the whole thing.

now I'm off to my "retreat" for a whole 20 hours' peace and quiet. the endless days of contemplation you'd imagine a writer having just don't exist when said writer has a 3-year-old child. don't. can't. never mind.