I Love What You Hate, and Vice Versa

So I went to local-tri-store-with-notorious-bad-customer-service today. I had a gift certificate and needed a new watch. Mirable dictu! The staff were actually helpful. I'd known the store had changed ownership last year. But I wasn't convinced that meant its employees would take me seriously as a customer, triathlete, or human, really. But things can change, and change is good.

I saw "Mamma Mia" with some friends. Parts of it I liked, parts of it I didn't. What I disliked were all the usual complaints about musicals, the things that are the very definition of a musical. So the logic then follows that the movie was successful, because it achieved its prescribed goals.

I recently received an extremely encouraging rejection from a journal editor. She couldn't take my submission, but asked me to send another. So I did. And it was rejected, too. I asked her to explain her reasoning, which she generously did. I thought a lot about her email. I could see her points. But what she disliked was precisely what I was aiming for. And there is, of course, more than one way to write a story. So I have to hope that some other editor will like the goals I've set out for the story, and find it successful, too.