The husband occassionally asks about my fellow cohorts-in-crime and where everybody is in the flight pattern. He also knows that the correct answer for “What’s the average response time for H/S?” is anywhere from 2 days to 2+ years. Because he’s in a business where he has to jump or people don’t have heat, air conditioning, or light sockets that don’t curl one’s hair, it boggles his mind. (Surprisingly, more people get bitchy when they don’t have AC then when they don’t have heat.)

Anyway, he thought H/S’s move toward trying to ensure 3-month waits was a great idea. I disagreed with him, and every single time he asks about the compadres, we have this *cough-heated-cough* debate. I have explained to him in the past that the only way to consistently send out responses within the 3 month mark is to rely heavily on the form rejection letter.

I haven’t received a form rejection yet. Even the really, really crappy partial I sent to Leslie Wainger back when it was for the Yours Truly line (I think) got a few comments, and that was before I even know what POV was. For the Silhouette Romance bullet I dodged, I got a fabulous rejection. I waited seven months, but it was worth it. And the psychological effects on a writer who’s received detailed rejections, who then starts getting forms can’t be underestimated, either.

The husband thinks a rejection is a rejection, and he’d rather have it in 3 months. He doesn’t think the comments are worth it, because I put the ms under the bed anyway. When I explain that I can take those comments into the next ms with me, he just snorts, because he doesn’t think the comments were worth four months of my life.

And since we’re both too stubborn to agree to disagree, we’ll probably have the very same debate again soon.

Now I’ve got to finish editing my RTB column, and do some critiquing. And find the Doritos. The short kid ran off with them