So much light! We’re presently up to almost fifteen (15!) hours of daylight up here in Anchorage, and we’re gaining a giddy five minutes a day. Soon it will be light past midnight and we’ll be out hiking and biking all hours of the night and then dragging ourselves around in an exhausted heap during the daytime hours because this is Alaska and summer is short and you’ve got to live it while you can.

And speaking of light (well, this has nothing to do with light but still, it was such a good opening line that I couldn’t resist), I’m loving Inside Out Girl by Tish Cohen.

The writing is smooth, with a nice, witty edge. The voice is strong and the characters so lovable and flawed that I want to reach inside the words and give them all a hug.

I can’t remember when I’ve enjoyed a book this much.

I’ll write a review when I finish but for now I’m lingering inside this world, I’m reading slowly because I don’t want to leave, don’t want to lose my hold on these people I’ve grown to love (especially Olivia).

Other news: I was feeling so damned heady because I hadn’t received a rejection notice for two weeks (two glorious weeks!). And then wham!, I was slammed with one on Sunday. It seems wrong, doesn’t it, to ruin the end of one’s weekend in such a way. But alas, editors are people and people have to work and weekends are fair game.

So, to cheer myself up, I started reading quotes by other writers (and by “other” I mean more-famous-then-I’ll-ever-be writers). Some were so good that I had to share.

“I wrote for twelve years and collected 250 rejection slips before getting any fiction published, so I guess outside reinforcement isn’t all that important to me.”
—Lisa Alther

“You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you’re working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success – but only if you persist.”
–Isaac Asimov

“This manuscript of yours that has just come back from another editor is a precious package. Don’t consider it rejected. Consider that you’ve addressed it ‘to the editor who can appreciate my work’ and it has simply come back stamped ‘Not at this address’. Just keep looking for the right address.”
—Barbara Kingsolver

“I’ve got a folder full of rejection slips that I keep. Know why? Because those same editors are now calling my agent hoping I’ll write a book or novella for them. Things change. A rejection slip today might mean a frantic call to your agent in six months.”
—Mary Janice Davidson