Addicted to Addictions

Someone stop me before I go broke(er)!!!

I've known about eBay, I mean seriously, who hasn't heard about eBay?, for a while now.  I have a friend that works there and she does a great job finding tech deals which I check daily, but what really, truly draws me in are the BEADS.  I found this necklace to the left and instantly fell in love with it.  I won't pay the price for it, not when I can make it myself.  (it probably won't be this nice, but it will be me).  So, I set off looking for a labradorite pendant that flashes the blues and greens like this one does.  Labradorite can range from a dirty gray crystal with flecks of color to something this sumptuous and ethereal.  What I truly love about this stone is that it looks like a drop of water with a world frozen inside.  The wire is oxidized sterling silver, which I learned you can put shiny sterling silver in a bag with a hard boiled egg and it will oxidize it for you, they caution you not to eat the egg afterwards.  The smaller beads are 4 or 6mm faceted garnet.  The other findings I can make up as I go along, which is exactly me.

Here's the rub.  Do you know how many beads, pendants, crystals, necklaces and other doo-dads that are on eBay for a remarkable price?  I could die a happy little addict if I hadn't tallied up my costs of what I've paid for so far....$107!!!!  I could have bought the necklace for that price!  Now, don't get me wrong, most of the money is coming out of my allowance, which I can spend anyway I see fit, but still that's a lot of money for four or five labradorite pendants that I purchased and then found what I thought was the perfect one on a Buy-It-Now vendor.....and then I found the ultimate bead for my necklace, and it isn't labradorite at all....It's amethyst.  I don't think it shows well here, but if it has everything I see in it, it should suit me just fine, and amethyst has an innate power of, get this, self-control.  Boy do I need that.  I plan on putting the other pendants to use too, who know, I might inspire someone's addiction in the future with eBay being the dealer of all addictions. After all, a good addiction is a shared addiction.

If I just bought labradorite it would be one thing, but I bought more amethyst, ruby, emerald, ruby in fluorite, druzy, sea settlement jasper, jasper, and peridot and so much more....the only thing bad for the addict is the waiting for it to ship from all over the freaking world!  What addict has that kind of patience, I ask you?  I have to keep my ruler handy too, because it looks HUGE on the screen and it arrives in a flat parcel and you realize it would best fit Barbie and her skinny little friends. Grrrr.

(For those of you wondering why I've been so quiet it's because I've been so internally dead from a tsunami of emotions I was barely keeping my head above water to do my jobs.  My mom is still alive and just turned 85, my parrot is doing fine, and I am getting my creativity on.  I'm even writing again.  I'm stockpiling all these elements for when my mom goes on vacation with my sister in June and I can take over the kitchen table so I can luxuriate in the creative juices.  I'm hoping this won't be the end of the imagination train.)

New Years Resolutions

For those that know me I am something of a New Years Resolution fiend.  I have a theme, and how that theme will work in each facet of my life.  My theme this year is HEALTH.  And to be healthy I need to write.  So armed with that ubiquitous theme I am going to resolve to do at least two blogs a month.  I've been so self-absorbed the past year.  Literally self absorbed to the point that I've turned my insides out and I'm still trying to put things back where they belong.  Believe me,  it wasn't fun.  Maybe I'll share some of those lessons learned in the coming year, maybe I'll just share the bits and pieces that make a life worth the taxes we pay for it.  No matter what it is, please hold on, as in most of our lives, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Editing in Real Life

I've been editing my second book, a girl meets genealogy and stirs up some ghosts of her families past, it's a fun story and I enjoy re-running certain points in my head because they're entertaining, but editing.....I hate editing.  It points out that I wasn't good enough to get it right in the first draft.  Not that anyone really does, I know, but that is the goal that I strive for.  And true to form, I will find anything else to do other than editing, like, I dunno Blogging perhaps? hehe  As I was driving around town today, looking at antique shops for a cool cane for my Mom and a nice poison cabinet for when I start making poisons (whole other long story, they aren't for human use or animal use either, I've not found any Borgia in my blood-line...)  I was looking at editing from a whole-life perspective instead of just as a tiresome job to do after writing. 

How often do we find ourselves like bonsai trees, edited to an ascetically consumable standard.  We grow, push our roots out further and as soon as we start to show growth we clip ourselves back into shape, never allowed to really wiggle our roots in a loamy soil.  We bend and clamp ourselves into different positions until we can do nothing else.  Yes, we're beautiful, but are we happy?  Everyone is confined to their dishes, be it large or small, and though we see the trees in the wild and even envy them at times, but no one would trade their cozy, warm, manicured life for the opportunity to grow big and tall and then shot down by lightning or rotted out by mold. 

How much editing is needed though?  I mean seriously, how much should we keep and how much should we redact from our every day life to 'fit in' or to be loved?  I guess it comes down to what kind of bonsai you are.  If you are a palm, a ficus or maple tree and what ever other kind of bonsais there are out there.  I like the tree I picked for this piece, it shows the seasons, it changes every few months.  I'd like to believe that my personal editing makes way for new growth without out-growing my roots or pot I have to grow in this life.  Both humble and proud, showy and coy, stalwart and flaky in one big bottomed bowl. Yea, that's me!

Procrastination

It is said that Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.  In my case, it feel like trying to keep up with last week.  Especially when it comes to something that I want desperately but don't want my toes stepped on or my heart crushed again.  I'm talking about submitting my manuscript to WiDo.  The query letter thing has always been a bit of a block for me.  I've tried to be witty, I've tried to be businesslike, I've tried to be professional, I've tried to be persuasive, but no matter what I've tried I can't seem to get published.  I have had some very positive feedback from the different people that have read my work, even getting to the final phase of reading when it's voted on as to whether or not it should be published....but it was a no.  I want to be able to support myself with my writing, but it's never going to happen as long as I keep dragging my feet and daydreaming that I'll stumble into a VP at a big publishing house who sees my potential and wit as the next big thing in publishing and signs me on the spot.  And I'm not completely deluded into thinking that I can actually make a great living as a published author.  In truth only a handful get the $1 million dollar advances for their work, which is why I became a phlebotomist, but it's good to have goals.

So, I wrote the query letter for WiDo last week, or it could even be the week before, I forget.  My brain has been swimming in it's own miasma lately, so memory is kind of obscured in the fog.  I took the approach of answering the points they wanted me to cover. Information about myself and my writing, I gave them the "elevator" pitch for the book, and then my activity in social networking and how I would use it to help them market my work.  (Yes, dear reader, you will be updated step-by-important-step of the process when it is accepted for publication.  And more than likely you will be the fifth group of people I notify of my glorious news).  Each section is headed and then a paragraph or two would be under it for ease of reading.  I'd post it here, the query letter, if I thought it would give me an edge, but I think I just need to print it, edit it and then paste it into an e-mail with my first three chapters and send it off.  Why is it that something that looks so simple on paper feel like moving a fifty ton boulder up an 180 degree hill? 

The funny thing is, it's not like I've had a hundred or so "No's" for this project, it's actually been less than 10.  Most people get that done and over with and take on even more before breakfast and don't let something as simple as a little word stop them from their dreams becoming a reality.  Maybe that's the true fear for me....my dreams becoming a reality.  Not to sound morose or anything, but there is a little hermit inside my head that believes as soon as your accomplish everything you've wanted  to accomplish, you die.  He's not very popular with the cool kids in my head, hence the hermit status.  I won't die, I know that because I am always setting goals, always setting the bar higher and always wanting more, which is just human nature as we all know it.  So, Hermit be gone, I'm sending it out on Friday so they can print it up and take it home for the weekend!  Wish me luck!

Courage In The Quiet Moments

I've been calling myself a coward for being so, uhm, cowardly in sending my manuscript back out into the wide world for publication.  I know, I know, you will get hundreds of nos before you get that one yes.  You stop getting nos after that, it's just getting that one yes that is driving me bonkers.  I've been looking at a new possible publisher called WiDo.  I'm pronouncing it "We Do" in hopes that they do publish my manuscript.  I've been told by other publishers, in their "Thanks but no thanks" letters that it's a good story, but it doesn't mesh within their wheelhouse. It not like I've recieved a bunch of no's for my work, it's just the handful that I have had are so, I dunno, discouraging.  If I can't handle the single no from a publisher how am I going to handle it when I am published and even if the critics love it there's always one who hates what eveyone loves (you know who you are)  and he says that it's crap-on-a-stick and a tragic waste of trees to print it.  I can't be afraid of the little no, I need to straighten my weak knees, focus on the prize and stop looking at the no's behind me and start hunting for the yes to come.

I hate giving myself pep talks, they all seem a bit self-serving, don't you think?

Faster than a Breaking Heart

Well, I've heard back from Maple Tree's appropriate imprint called Trumpet Media.  They are currently not taking on new manuscripts.  Which is something I wasn't able to glean from their website.  I get that there are a lot of unpub'd out there wanting to find that one kind and generous publisher that will take on the adventure of a new author.  I get that, really.  What I don't get is why they are willing to get unpub's hearts and hopes up because they don't post it on their website instead of sending out a curt "We're not taking submissions at this time" e-mails and making them waste time filling in their forms instead of letting me send a querry letter.  So, now that my head has stopped spinning, stitch things back together and find another publisher to send my work to.  Chocolate would be so good right now. {{sigh}}

I Done Did It Again

So, I planned to send my Soul Searching: House of Dragons to Walnut Springs Press yesterday, in honor of my "anniversary". Yea, I know I said I'd do it last week, but the way my chronometer works, then is now, so I'm on schedule. As I was trying to find the newest copy of my novel I realized that leathertreepress.com is where I sent it last June....essentially I already sent it to them, never heard back. Now that we're 'friends' on Facebook, I'll have to poke them and ask them why.

What shocked me the most was how familiar it was to fill out the submissions page for Maple Tree Publishing Company. I'm pretty sure I filled it out once before but abandoned it for some reason or another. Hopefully I'm not being redundant by sending it twice.

I'm wondering though if by sending it to Maple Tree, which is the umbrella publishing arm of four imprints if that means I've met my New Years Resolution of sending House of Dragons off to four different publishers in the year 2011? There's the lazy writer in me that says "Yes!!!" so I don't have to hold my breath for four different "Thanks, but no thanks." or if I just need to pull up my big-girl writing pants and suck-it-up and find another imprint to submit to.

The Dreamer and the Dream

Had one humdinger of a dream last night. It haunted me most of the morning until I realized what it meant. To start with, I went to bed dizzy. Not the my-feet-aren't-completely-on-the-floor kind of loosing balance but the effect when you turn your head and the vitreous fluid that surrounds the lobes continues to flow in direction of the turn. If I sit still I'm fine.

The dream had me at an event where there were different games and I was winning (which I never do), but I kept on thinking I needed to feed the dogs. I don't have dogs in the waking world, and essentially these weren't my dogs in the dream either, I was just responsible for them. I always made a point of feeding Sammy (my beastly bird) first thing in the morning, and I remembered in the dream that I did that. Days were quick in the dream, and each day I would remind myself to feed the dogs. Even wondering at one point if they were even still alive considering how long it had been since I fed them.

The final game happened and I tied for first. It was this game where I had to roll a bocce sized ball on a U-shaped track with my left hand, catch it with my right and then shoot it over to my left and send it on the track again. The one who make the loop the most wins that bout. I was able to do it fifteen times before time was called, the guy I was competing with did the same. I wanted the big plastic bag of sea shells and plastic dinnerware and I gave him the trophy, it wasn't that important to me.

I found my family on the beach, walking with the two girls that were refereeing the game, they were heading in the same direction. They were doing this for college credit and were amazed that I wasn't a college student too, as if only college kids could play games or were supposed to play games, I don't know. We talked about the dogs and I realized, again, I hadn't fed them.

With the magic of dreams I was at the house I grew up in, the one place that I still think of as home, and I saw the dogs. One was my sisters deceased 16 year old Australian cattle dog and then my nephews Peke named Gratch. Though I recognized Gratch as Gratch it didn't look like his dog. It was completely shaved, including the mohawk, bigger and more brown than cream as his little pooch was and completely emaciated. Shaunzie, Sandy's dog wasn't as bad off. Joey was there, feeding Gratch, rubbing salt in my already wounded heart for neglecting these little animals. Not mean, but well intended berating of sorts. Gratch filled out after one bowl of table scraps and dog food, while Shaunzie really didn't need anything. Neither of the dogs wanted anything to do with me.

It startled me, because, even though I've been a neglectful pet owner in the past (like decades in the past when I was still a kid) I would never do anything like that, consciously starve an animal until I could see their ribs. I've had tug-o-minds with a dog that refused to eat cheap dog food, but I always made sure he ate. (he won by the way, he got the good stuff in the end. Cheeky beast.) That's why it stuck with me so long today, the neglect, the absent mindedness, it's just so not me these days when it comes to living creatures and humans.

Then it dawned on me....

The dogs aren't dogs, they are my creative projects. Clarissa Pinkola Estes talked about dreams in her "Women Who Run With Wolves" book. It's an excellent read if anyone is looking for a chance to see themselves differently and to get a little more comfortable in their own creative skin. Shaunzie represents the book that's finished. It could use a little more work on the end, but I'll wait for an editor to help me through it. It ended where it ended, and that's normally where I make my end, whether it makes sense or not. The starving, smaller one is Gratch. The work in progress. The characters haven't spoken to me in a long time, not since I wrote Purple People Eater and it's like they are always in the back of my mind that they need to be fed, but I never feed them because they won't have anything to do with me. I guess my subconscious is tired of having to do all the character-husbandry and wants me to kick in again and get back to the keyboard and edit the monster down to a more comfortable book. To put it on par with the dream, editing down to me is like wandering through a yard with a shovel to pick up the piles left behind by dogs. It's hard, smelly, dirty work. But it's got to get done. That's not saying my story is poo, I personally enjoy the characters when they fat and happily fed, it's just the work of weeding out the verbose from the sublime. 

I guess it's time to let the dogs out......

Happy Aniversary.....Again

Looking back over my blogs I found one that dated back to April 8, 2008, it said it had been two long years since I tried to get published. That was three years ago, which means it was five years ago that I began my quest for publication. I'm sorry to say that it has been mostly fruitless because of my lack of trying. Yes, the responses I've gotten so far have been positive 'no's, but they are still nos. I'm trying not to take it personally, but it's like having the ugliest baby in a baby contest. No matter how dog-like your baby, you expect it to win with distinction. So, tomorrow, come hell or high-water I will be finding a publisher and sending off my baby off for judgment. If time is going to fly, I'm going to soar under my own volition!!

Networking is as Networking Does

I have been toying around with the idea of sticking my electronic hand out there and introducing myself to total strangers to assist in my job search as well as finding in-roads to getting published. I understand the idea of networking, I do, but it's never been a strong suit of mine. Making *friends* of people I've never met seems a little pushy but I'm receiving a welcome far beyond anything that I would have given in return (Says a lot about me, doesn't it). It's not that I'm rude, I try hard not to be, in public anyway, but I've always been more intro rather than extroverted and vain to think that people will want to seek me out instead of the other way around. No one is that good!

So, now I've got more friends on Facebook than I've ever had, I've got leads for associations that I've never known before and people that are willing to help a introverted writer become an extroverted author. I gotta say, than you to all my new friends and a bigger thank you for my friends that have always been there for me. Networking is a good thing.

PS, those in the Bay Area area, I am still looking for work if you know of anyone that needs and admin, office manager, event/tradeshow/project coordinator or a phlebotomist, please let me know. There is a fresh loaf of hame-made bread machine wheat bread in it for you.

Taking Flight into My Future

Well, I finished my exam, and I have to say it was a transformative experience. I didn't expect that. I was thinking it was from a grub to a butterfly but that didn't seem to encompass my feeling completely. The grub (or pupa or worm...whatever you want to call its pre-flight stage) always knows that she is supposed to have wings one day. A dragonfly starts off as a nymph, a complete and whole as an underwater being skewering small fish, mosquito larva and anything else they can fit in their mouth. This state can last for a few years, and then one day, they drag their wet bodies out of the water and shed their skin and wings appear.

This is a whole new animal, well, insect. She can fly up to speeds of 30 miles per hour. With her four independent wings she can fly forward, side to side and even backwards. When I read that it clicked! That's what happened to me. I pulled myself out of the pond of self oppression, of chasing the wrong dreams, of allowing myself to just slide by with good-enough. I'm not that girl anymore. I'm flying! I can see clearly now, the pond is gone. I'm no longer in still stagnating water, but I have the dexterity to fly to chase my quarry; becoming an author. I still have work to do to become a fully fledged phlebotomist, but for now, I am quite content to just stretch my wings and fly.

Writers Block, Thy Name Is Jealousy

I just finished reading The Host last night. I was too wiped from the Gartner Gala for Mom's 80th and about all I was good for was reading or sleeping. So, I read. I had been reading this on the treadmill at the gym, and it actually got me going to the gym for a while.

I love the book, but I also hate the book. I love it because it is a really good story, I hate it because it made me cry. I don't cry, as a general rule. It's too emotionally exhausting. So, I find other ways to express myself. I loved it because it had a happy ending, I hated it because it's made me feel like such a slouch with my writing. I can't get my family to read the book that I have written, how can I get strangers to read it. My friends like it, so that's somewhat consoling, but I still depend on my family for validation.

I know, I know, being jealous isn't a good thing to be, it's counter-productive, I'm not going to get anything really accomplished. I'm not going to be a Stephanie Meyer, I'm not going to be a Victor(ia) Hugo, or even a Jane Austen. We already have them, I just need to be me. But I want to make people cry, I want to publish a book that makes people sit and spend the whole day reading until they get to the end, just because they know they can't sleep unless they know the end. I want to be like that.

I'm whining, I know I'm whining. I need to go to the gym, I'm reading Harry Potter again, it's a simple book to read on the treadmill. Before The Host I read His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman, which is the title of the trilogy of The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. All very good books. None of them made me cry, none of them made me wish I was *that* good. I would like to have the imagination to create the world the Phillip Pullman created, I don't think I'm wired towards fantasy. Yes, The Host is fantasy but it's more of a psychological romance, sacrifice and so on.

One of the things that I really admire of Stephanie Meyers is her willingness to stick to standards in her stories. When I say "stick to standards" I mean the LDS standards that she lives. There is some language, but no F-bombs, no degrading behavior human towards human, even though they didn't like the alien, they didn't treat her well at first but some were willing to look past it and that's where the story really takes off. I need to be true to myself, and believe that I have talent, that I am a good writer that people will read me like I read others. At least have hope to faith until faith becomes knowledge......

Fear and Loathing in Silicon Valley

First my desktop dies, then my car dies. I get my car out of the shop at a $700+ ransom and using my Internet-less laptop, and borrowing other laptops to get other things done beyond the walls of my temporary prison. Then, in a fit of rushed anxiety the housing of my thumb drive came off. One would think it wouldn't be too bad of a mishap, in light of my computer being down, my car being broken, oh, and did I mention I was running late to my appointment with the Cannery so I could fulfill my calling as home storage guru for the ward? But that one particular thumb drive had my current working document of my novel "Hearts of the Mothers". I had just concluded I had over 2/3rds finished. I tried to quickly save it to my laptop desktop but it wouldn't and it completely killed the application. The only soft copy that I had was the twenty six pages I started with in January. It would be okay if I hadn't written over 300 pages since then. I was dying inside.

I refused to curl up on the floor in a fetal position and give up though. I tried to put the housing back on but that didn't work, and I also knew that handling the actual components of the drive I ran the risk of sending some sort of static shock to them so I plugged it back into the laptop I was using and then my 4 gig thumb drive I've been meaning to update everything to and quickly moved all the files over. But when I tried to call the file up the computer wouldn't work. Even without the knowledge that my work was saved I went to the cannery, printed up my backup work there and then came home and took a sleeping pill and prayed that all will be well.

All is well. I was able to pull the actual 321 page document up and save it to my desktop on my laptop, saved it to the desktop of my sisters laptop and I will save it to this desktop of Patrick's laptop. I'm never EVER going to loose that much work again. I can't say that I hate computers, I think I hate more my dependency on them.

3 August 2006 & Counting - Fin

Not counting any more. In fact, I'm back in the dating game, so to speak. I hate the dating game. You have to gear up for the "big sale" only the sale can last upwards of eight tiring months of waiting for the big fish to bite. In this case, they bit me in the ass. I know the picture doesn't make much sense to the rant, but it's one of mine and I thought I'd share.

It's not that the whole rejection letter was bad, it was actually quite positive and complimentary, but to say it was a positive rejection letter is a really bad oxymoron. They said their reviewers gave it an "excellent" rating, and that I really got into the minds of what it was like to be a missionary. Their only criticism was my ending which didn't end the way they had hoped. I don't know what they were expecting, they are missionaries after all, it's not like they can have a kegger or something. I talked to my editor about it and she said I shouldn't change it unless it was something I was going to change in the first place, which I wasn't. It ended where it wanted to end, how can I change that? Everyone had learned the lesson they were supposed to learn and had applied it while they were there...so my question is, where do you take story from there.

I'm now in the process of trying to pick another publisher to send it to. I have the deadline for it to be in the mail of May 1, 2007. I'm going to give them about six months to consider it before I send it out to the next one and then just make it a habit of sending it out every six months. I don't want to have to wait for eight months to find out that they aren't going to take it. I could have had it on the desk of another publishing house for two moths had I initiated this policy before. I guess you live and learn. I think I've narrowed it down to a publisher that published a fictional story about the MTC, at least I think it's fictional. Maybe they'll be interested in adding to their missionary library....we'll see. Time will tell.

Ex-Lax for Writers Block

I'm not writing much these days. Well, I'm blogging, but I really don't consider blogging as *writing*. It's more like a stream of consciousness thing where I can talk and express myself, chipping away at the boulder in front of me. There is this story that my mind to comfort me during this time...it goes something like this....

A man was told by God to push on a rock, and as an obedient servant of his Lord he got up each morning and began to push on the boulder with no success in moving it. Undeterred he did this every day for years. Years turned into decades and finally after the man had filled out, his arms and back rippled with muscles and his legs we like unmovable tree-trunks. In frustration he knelt down and prayed "Why? Why have you asked me to do this impossible task. I can't move this rock." The Lord, answered his obedient servant in loving dulcet tones. "Dear child, I told you to push on the rock, not to move it. Look at yourself. You are strong and you are determined. Now you are ready for that which I have prepared for you to do."

Only I know that this writers block isn't a huge trial before me and I'm tired of blogging in hopes to chip away at the mass to either find a vein of weakness and destroy it or chip away at it to be able to pass it. However, my favorite chisel and hammer are gone - Money. I don't *need* money to write, in fact, that's one of the things that I truly love about it, I can write with out any electricity at all. But the ability to buy research materials, to go to restaurants that provide the food that I'm writing about or just to do something that broadens the senses and quickens the mind is what money provides at a time like this.

106 Days and counting.....I think this is the stress that the block is made of. I'm worried that the fiction isn't strong enough to be believable, that the spell I wove with the words isn't strong enough to bind the reader to the page. Which stress bleeds over to the present project...what if I'm not making a cohesive tapestry and it's just a farce that I'm acting out to my own humiliation. I'm going to try and lull myself into a safe state of denial and try to believe that it takes publishers 150 days to read a manuscript and then, after that day, I can start to worry. That puts my fretting off until December 21, 2006. I think, no matter what my finances are, I should have a celebration. That is if I haven't heard back yet.

3 August 2006 & Counting......

Okay, I know it takes a long time for people to read a manuscript, and I know the longer it takes for the publishing house to review it the better it is for me....well as a writer any way. I'm frazzled....I anxiously peer over a half a block when I'm driving home hoping to not see a box on my door step, my heart races every time I see the Fed-Ex truck pull up in front of our town-house when no one is expecting anything only to have my heart sink to my colon when he is just checking his route in front of our house before he goes onto the true recipient of his delivery.

I'm not whining per se.... well, yes I am. But I've been very lucky in this process so far. The first time I sent out House of Dragons I got a six week turn around and a "Thanks but no thanks" standard letter. Well, not even a standard letter. It looked like it had been written by the high school age temp-receptionist with aspirations in engineering. But that's fine. I sent it to Desert Books thinking that out of loyalty I should sent it to the church's official book publisher before I started to farm it out to other people. So, I polished up my tarnished hopes and sent it out to Covenant. They just wanted three chapters and would call me if I tickled their fancy further. And, in this case I did. I got an e-mail request for the remainder of the manuscript. However, in about six weeks after that I got the three chapters I had originally sent them back. I think they might be a little too conservative for what I wrote. Or, they just don't have the bandwidth and or need for young adult fiction. It took a few weeks to pull my courage up to send it out again.

This time, you'd think I'd feel more hopeful. I mean, common, on my second try I got passed the first and second gates of readers. But I'm more stressed than ever. Maybe being unemployed has something to do with it, I dunno. All I know is I want to know NOW. Granted, it's only been slightly over three months since they had it. The note they sent me that said they would be reviewing it said manuscripts take considerably longer than their music and art submissions (which take up to 6 weeks), but this is twice that. Either it's going through the ranks, which is a good thing, or the initial reader is tripping over his lips as he reads.

I have been praying that they are going to take it, but if they don't, then I have another publisher all picked out to send it to. They have an established young adult line of books posted on their website, so I could only assume this is an area in which they want to expand. Unless their young adult fiction isn't as profitable as they would like it.

You know the joke/prayer "God grant me patience, RIGHT NOW!" and the axiom, I can wait for anything as long as it happens right now....that's what I feel like. My editor (God bless her!) assures me I have a marketable product. I just need to keep sending it out until someone accepts it. In the mean time I need to work on The Song of the Righteous (working title) is ready to go shortly so I can have two out there.... Hopefully increasing my odds.

Midnight Musings

I love late at night when the world has gone to sleep and all I hear are the bleating of the bats as they scour the sky for the every present insects. They are among the freakiest of God's creatures, but you gotta love 'em. They eat the bugs.

This is the time of night when lightning strikes, when ideas that have slumbered in their hulls break forth and start to germinate in the imagination. Some burst forth with vibrant colors and luscious textures, some take their time to wrap it's tendrils around all the elements until a more elegant, sophisticated product emerges. Either way, the element of both are the late night musings when I'm all alone with either my pen to paper or finger tips on keys. Lightning strikes most dramatically when all is dark, when all is well, when all else is asleep.

It's not the rejection, it's the waiting for the rejection...

Maybe I'm being pessimistic, maybe I'm a dooms-dayer of sorts, but I am eagerly checking my e-mail every day for Covenant Publishers e-mail of rejection. Not that my work is all that bad, it does need some TLC in the copy editing department, but then what first draft to the publisher doesn't need that? Maybe a manual on copy editing, but this is fiction.

My mind often trips on the daydream about what it would be like to have to go on a book tour, even if it is to different LDS bookstores around the US. I've been trying to figure out how I would do it because me traveling a lot isn't good for Sammy, the feathered beast. I know that's silly, but I take my responsibility to her seriously and when you join a flock or become apart of this animals wild kingdom, you need to take that into consideration. She isn't going to understand me being gone for more than a day or two. Sure, people will still be interacting with her, she will get fed but she is mine and I am hers and she misses me. For example, she starts to have a fit (fit means screaming at the top of her lungs) at 5:30pm, about when I should be home from work Monday - Friday. Then, she has to be on my shoulder the rest of the night until bedtime (hers not mine). It's just what birds do when they find their flock. So, this is my idea..... http://www.fleetwoodrv.com/americaneagle/

Not that I can really expect to earn $300,00-400,000 from my first book, but one can dream. This way I can take Sammy with me. Figure out some place to put a cage. She wouldn't really need a big one because she'd just have to sleep in it and eat in it. I'd try to construct a perch for the front seat for her so she can ride up front with me. But I could live in this, and then go to places where I can visit nice places, make the book tour and not have to go to hotel to motel to pension but have a feather bed to sleep in each night, a place to work, a place where I can close the door and know that I am the only one that has slept in the bed, the only one that has padded around the floor in my bare feet. I wouldn't have to worry about eating out because I can cook in.....but I don't really cook but I can learn.

I know, most of you are rotflyao at me right now. But I take my pet stewardship seriously, as all animal owners should. Parrots can live over 50 years, we're not talking a gold fish here. Sammy has an expected life span of 40-75 years. Depending on how well I take care of her. I think she'll live to be 100 considering how I take care of her. But mostly, I think, I don't want to leave her behind if I have to go on any extended tour. If I could get me one of these I could live in it and work remotely from anywhere in the US, Canada or even Mexico (I don't think I'm that adventurous though).

So, this is how I occupy my time while I'm waiting for the rejection. Not that I'm going to get rejected, I know, but I could and then I have to start this process all over again. So, I'd rather dream bout 1/2 million dollar RV's to travel the US in doing book tours than thinking about what I'm going to do if/when they come back with "thank you but no" or worse, send me a form rejection letter....which would truly hurt. That's how Deseret Books done me. And to add insult to injury, the form letter reads like a Jr. High Schooler wrote it.

I'll save the general fear of going to book signings and giving talks about my book and concepts for another blog. Which is another reason why I would need a place like this of my own to go back to and 'recover' if you will.