Why I didn’t put up a picture of a bird bottle

I have been up to my ears in authorly pursuits lately, very little of it is writing.

I am compiling manuscripts for an anthology with the unlikely name of Fish Nets. The job consists of receiving all the stories by email, keeping tack of the authors and addresses, sending out the manuscripts to be scored, compiling the scores and sending the top stories to the editor. Then every author gets a copy of the scores and comments. This is my second time through this ordeal, the first time was for Fish Tales, now on Amazon.com. Now that I sent the last score sheet out, I have a break until the editor returns the stories to me for the authors for revision. Here are some things I learned from these two experiences.

Authors are impatient. I would receive an email with a story attached once I opened the attachment and saved the story, I notified the author that I had it. Many couldn’t wait, and hours after the manuscript landed in my mail box, the author sent a second email asking if I had it.

Authors are mostly kind. Many of the emails end with the line “Thank you for taking on this job.”

No matter what you do, someone will think they could do it better. I have a great group of people standing behind me to pick up the pieces.

Don’t look for Fish Nets to appear next to Fish Tales soon, but it will be along.