PShaw. If I enter a building without a backdoor, I leave through a window.

1. I think the themes are basically everyone involved getting together and throwing water balloons full of ideas around until one pops and makes a huge mess on the floor. That one wins. Some members have been known to thrown the balloons harder if it contains an idea they really, really like. But other members have been known to secretly switch which idea goes into which balloon. Sneaky bastards, every one of them!

2. Prestigous cabals normally require sacrifices to get in–things like severed ring fingers and percentages of souls and the memory of your first kiss. Sometimes other methods may be utilized, but they are difficult to discover. Heck, I guess I am in the cabal and still have no idea how I got in. I think somebody may have sold my soul for me. I hope they didn’t give it all away yet!

On a vaguely more serious note, make friends. Don’t make friends in an attempt to sneak into “top seekrit coolness”, but make friends because the people you are talking to are super cool people you want to be friends with. And maybe at some point they’ll see an interesting opportunity and think of you. Maybe at some point you’ll see an interesting opportunity and think of them. Whether something comes up or not, though, doesn’t matter because the coolest part is that you have a nifty friend to hang with. Hooray for nifty friends!

You can also write super awesome stuff and be published in super awesome places and get noticed by super awesome people looking for just the kind of thing you write.

Or you can buy out every magazine and institute your own secret theme issue policies (like: Every secret theme must include a banana in a fedora!).

It also helps to be able to leap buildings in a maximum of two bounds, swing on webs made of poetical material (haikus only suggested if interwoven for extra length), or be adept at entering and exiting doors in the correct order. Super strength is an extra bonus.

1) How is the theme coordinated? Do you posted theme-specific submissions guidelines? For example: issue #15 is all based upon the Tarot and issue #11 is based simply upon ‘lists.’

2) When (if ever) is there an open submission period? If there is none, how do you obtain a super-secret-decoder-ring-of-fiction in order to participate in this prestigious cabal?

BTW, I enjoyed the Tower.

Well, except Paul. He just walks through the building entrance and out the back door. Smart bastard!

I’m proud to finally share a TOC with you.

And happy birthday a little early, too! (if LJ isn’t lying to me )