Each year, Third Estate Sunday Review has used a week's edition to offer the summer read. That ends with the edition you're reading. It's over, it's dead, it's killed.
What happened?
It was so much fun in the early days.
Now it's hurt feelings and frustration.
Marcia loves science fiction. That's a known and a given. She has an element that will twist a story we're working on. She doesn't get a full hearing. She barely gets to speak before someone says/snarls, "We've already worked four hours on a science fiction piece. We don't need another one."
And that may or may not be true, but Marcia's point wasn't science fiction.
In previous editions, Stan has been wronged. He wrote a great story that was worked on by others and after a number of rewrites, it just wasn't worth publishing here.
The week after that summer edition posted, we did post Stan's story -- an earlier draft by him and two other people.
Stan and others have suggested great ideas that were forgotten. Because these editions start with everyone pitching their ideas and then we window it down to what sounds interesting. And then that's what we work on. What gets written is then judged (in its final form) to see whether or not it's worth publishing.
Currently, this writing edition -- which has turned this site into The Third Estate Monday Review -- has laste over 30 hours. All of us have taken at least a two hour break. Some have taken more and good for them.
In the movie business, a great script comes in. It's original and unique and funny. And then Robert Redford's not interested unless his part is made equal to Jodie Foster's so you get another writer to do a re-write. This new draft means Jodie walks from the film (this actually happened). Now you need to find a different co-star and that means another rewrite. And maybe another . . .
In the end, the film either isn't made or its widely trashed.
And that process is what is happening here. Recognize this, "Along with Dallas, the following helped on this edition:"
The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's Kitchen,
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.
That's 20 people. Which is at least 17 too many to write a short story.
Betty enjoys poetry and if this edition works anywhere, it's probably the two poems. So good for Betty and the group that worked on them. It was a small group and it allowed them to focus.
Otherwise? The science fiction piece will be published.
The others?
How desperate are we?
The point of the summer edition, by the way, was never to have readers marvel, "Oh, it's the next Edith Wharton!" The point was to encourage fiction and to celebrate summer, the one time many adults crack a book.
Hopefully, that was achieved in these editions.
But now it's just too much to manage.
So this is both the latest yearly summer edition and also the death of the summer edition.