I recline now on my puke-green couch, sipping flat champagne and pondering where the day has gone.

I accomplished little since getting up this morning: a load of dishes, two loads of laundry, and a shitload of new critiques and polemics out on CritiqueCircle.com, where I play Simon Cowell to delusional wanna-be auteurs. How does it happen that someone will post for review just about the worst prose I've seen in weeks, and then when I begin raising grammar, syntax and word use objections at a rate of three to a sentence, I get deluged with weepy emails along the lines of, "But I've already got an agent for it! Is it really that bad? Should I not send it out? Should I quit writing altogether? Should I retire to a monastery in Ethiopia and live as a goat?"

How the fuck should I know? What am I supposed to say? All evidence to the contrary aside, I've still got a smidgen of tact left in me. I can't bloody well come out an say, "Look, if you found an agent for that drivel, then you found a bigger fool than yourself, so milk her for all she's worth." No, no... too well-brought up for that. I have to start on about how it's just my opinion, and there must be something to it if everyone else likes it, and how finding an agent is a splendid thing, and certainly more than I'll probably manage to accomplish once I finish my manuscript. All the while gritting my teeth into dust.

*sigh*