Another May Email Reading Period Update

First off: I'm tired. Dead dog tired.

Not to put a too fine point to it: I'm not getting paid for this co-editing gig at Interzone. It's a purely for the love thing.

Now don't get me wrong: I absolutely *love* doing it, more than the day job, actually. But it does mean that I'm reading all these submissions in my spare time.

A typical weekday: get up at 7, bike to the day job (on a push-bike: I don't have a car, by choice, as I do have a driver's license) at 7.30, work from about 8.30 to 17.00 (or from 09.00 to 17.30: I'm *not* a morning type of person), get home at about 18.00, quick meal preparation and eating from about 18.00 -- 19.00, then one to one-and-half-hours of sending out replies, then some three to four hours of reading, go to bed around midnight or later, exhausted, and repeat until Friday night.

With the obvious intrusions when the real world really cannot wait (bills, social commitments, Interzone non-slush-reading stuff, and more).

I realise that some will see this as the 'I-suffer-for-my-art' rant. Maybe it is, but I'm also saying it because quite a few of you think I'm doing this as my day job. Well, I'm not: I very strongly suspect that no magazine -- whatever its circulation -- would be willing to pay me what I now make in my day job as a technical specialist.

So if some submitters wonder why I don't respond as fast as -- say -- John Joseph Adams (who is doing a phenomenal job, BTW, no disrespect intended: rather the contrary), then you now know why: it's not my top priority (even if it's a thing I love to do).

So bear with me as I struggle onwards.

As to the actual update: I have caught up with all submissions until May 24 (with three exceptions, and I'm thinking really hard on those).

I still have about 75 stories still to read, and about 110 still to respond to (these include the ones I still need to read).

The plan is to finish it all over the coming weekend, but with a huge party on Saturday July 7, this is unrealistic. So sometime next week.

From July 21 onwards I have a two week holiday. The plan is to do something I haven't done for over half a year: write. One short story. Two if I'm lucky.

Or I might just visit family and friends to show them I'm still alive. It'll probably be a combination of the two.