I dug up an old diary a few months ago. From time to time I’ve tried to keep one of these, sometimes going so far as to try for journal status, but I just can’t seem to sustain it. So there are these relics lying about that occasionally unearth that give me a glimpse into what daily weirdness I was into back in 19—
The 20th Century.  That’s when I did a great deal of this sort of thing. I suppose ultimately that my own life bores me while I’m living it. Or maybe I’m too busy living it to record it. Whatever. But this one is from 1988, which was a Very Important Year for me.
Here is the entry for February 20.
Paul’s Books—Billy Budd, DesCartes, ets. Gravois Bootery. Gym,
Well, well, well! Call me a red-tailed gibbon! Clarion—the fools—accepted me. They have no idea what they’re letting themselves in for. Nor do I.
Twenty-one years ago (yesterday, technically, but I didn’t have time to write this till today) I received my acceptance from Clarion. As you may see from the link, they’re in San Diego now, but then it was in Michigan, MSU specifically, in East Lansing. It was a very nerve-wracking time. I’d sold exactly four short stories up till then, one of which had been to a pro magazine, fetching a handsome check, but never saw publication because the magazine went belly-up. (Actually, the story was eventually published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, but in an altered version.) I was getting desperate. I didn’t know why I couldn’t sell. So I applied to Clarion, figuring that if they rejected me I’d give up.
They took me. I went, I learned, I started selling stories. Now it is 21 years later.
I’ve just finished a substantial rewrite on a novella, per request. It’s such a thorough rewrite that it might as well be a new story. If the editors in question take it, it will be my first new sale in a few years. But working on it has served to remind me, viscerally, why I like writing so much. So I’m jazzed again. I’ll try to maintain it through more stories and a new novel or two.
So happy anniversary to me. Clarion made a difference. It’s a good date.