SQUEE

Joy is the feeling of grinning inside.

I'm sure Melba Colgrove is a smart person, whoever he/she/it is.

But fuck that.

I'm grinning outside!

I sent out five query letters last week. All five are back, as of about two hours ago.

Number One: Very gently written "no".

Number Two: Form letter "no".

Number Three: Attempted to be encouraging "no".

Number Four: Send me the first five pages.

Number Five: Another attempt at encouraging "no".

Oh wait, what was that? Back up at number four? Oh yeah, biotches.

That, right there, was a "yes".

Danced around like a lunatic, called a billion people, freaked out the passersby looking in the windows. Full-fledged joygasm.

Yes, I realise that Blessed Agent of Awesome could still say no. She has a handful of chances, actually.

Don't kill my buzz.

I'm off to do more spontaneous happy dancing.

Tree vs Lava

It's been four days.

I'd breakdown the hours, minutes and seconds for you, but I already feel pathetic enough as it is. No need to share my lametude with the world.

Yes, lametude is a word. I said so.

I haven't heard anything back from Agent Chica yet, but I'm not surprised.

At least, the rational part of my brain isn't surprised. She's a busy woman, said it'd be a bit of a wait, and well, it's only been four days. Regardless of the fact that she emailed me less than 12 hours after submitting, to let me know that she'd downloaded my book to her handy-dandy e-reader, I shouldn't be impatient, she's doing me a solid by reading it at all.

Ha.

You know that rational part of my brain? Imagine that it's a small, twiggy tree in the path of an erupting volcano.

Paranoid Lava eats Rational Tree.

Which for some reason reminds me of Jurassic Park. "Dinosaurs eat man...Woman inherits the earth."

Best line of the whole film.

And so not the point that I had in mind when I sat down to write this blog.

Despite Agent Chica's awesomeness, I've been entertaining the idea of sending out query letters to agents while I wait for her response.

This is a Rational Tree plan.

I know it's the smart thing to do. After all, the more chances I put out there, the more likely I'll get a yes, right?

Sizzle, pop, pop, sizzle...

The more chances that I'll get a loud chorus of "Oh hell no!"s.

Plus, sending out queries requires research. I'm too busy hitting the refresh button on my email to do research, waiting for an answer that probably won't come until at least tomorrow, given the time differences.

I look at myself spiraling, and want to scream "Don't go to the coast! Head to high ground!" Unfortunately, the cries of the other villagers about to die are drowning me out.

Scary.

Each time we face our fear, we gain strength, courage, and confidence in the doing.

I sent my book to Ali's agent a few minutes ago.

Terror doesn't begin to describe what's going on in my body right now.

I pressed 'send', and ran away from my computer. Dancing around my living room like a lunatic, trying to avoid the urge to google how to retrieve a sent email.

If that's even possible.

I want to be confident about this, I really do. I want to sit here and tell you guys that in a couple of weeks, I'll be celebrating the news that T has found an agent in the states for me, and I'll be published within six months.

I want that, so badly.

But now, all I can do is second-guess myself.

I need a drink.

Show them what you're worth...

Make em go Oh oh oh!

I finished my book tonight.

Typed "The End" and everything.

One set of edits, and it's ready to send off.

I think I might pull a Katy Perry and explode, with the amount of awesome I'm carrying around in my fun bags.

...Or something.

I'm sure I'm not going to be able to sleep, as I'm vibrating right now, but I need to. Only because if I stay up, something will happen to screw up the buzz I'm operating on right now.

I'm sure there's a melodramatic, self-depreciating post to follow, but that's not happening tonight.

Go me!

White-girl Rapper

"After all, computers crash, people die, relationships fall apart. The best we can do is breathe and reboot. And when that fails a little gizmo called a zip drive can provide a surprising amount of comfort."

I love "Sex and the City". It's one of my catch-all, fail-proof ways to get happy when I'm not.

The problem is when my life starts to mirror it.

There's an episode where Carrie's computer crashes, and she loses everything she'd written, for years. You watch this episode, laugh, and assume it will never happen to you.

You're wrong.

It will happen to you. One of these days, your computer will die an early death, and you will lose everything. Whether it's music, pictures, or five years worth of writing that you could never begin to recreate, you'll lose it.

I did.

Last week my computer died. Not for long, as I was able to save it's rotting carcass for a bit, at least until I can get a new one, but all of the data I had on it was wiped, completely. Not even my computer geek could get more than a few symbols and snippets of words from it.

Losing that much writing, that many starts of books that you swear you'll go back to at some other point, is painful. It feels like someone close to you has died. Like you've died.

Needless to say, even now, a week later, the sensation that I might burst into tears at any second is still very present.

Luckily the current project was on my little thumb drive, so at least I didn't lose that. But the rest of it...It's just gone.

Moral of this story? Back yo shit up.

Inkygirl has the perfect comics for me.

Procrastination is the fear of success. People procrastinate because they are affraid of the success that they know will result if they move ahead now. Because success is heavy, carries a responsibility with it, it is much easier to procrastinate and live on the "someday I'll" philosophy.

I'm convinced that Denis Waitley lives in my head. Because when I read things like this, I see myself so clearly in them, that honestly, they had to have been written for me.

Which incidentally reminds me of something that's been going on at work lately, which doesn't put me in a better mood.

Of course, that's not the point.

The point is, I've given myself until tomorrow at bedtime to send my novel (finished or otherwise) to Ali's agent friend. So what am I doing?

• I'm creating another blog for work stuff.
• I'm working too many hours and not writing during my shifts (not entirely my fault).
• I'm spending all day at my inlaws, and not bringing my book with me to work on.
• I'm updating this blog.
• I'm signing up for SHINE Online, a blogging contest kind of like NaNoWriMo.

I am not, however, writing.

Procrastination, and the fear that fuels it, is my ball and chain, dragging me down into the depths of "you'll never be good enough, so why bother?"

And now, I think I'm going to go take a shower, instead of writing. Or cleaning the house, which will force me to take off time from writing to do tomorrow.

Today is not a good day.

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

There's a girl at work, Christen, who I like.

Most of the time.

Sometimes, she screws up her personal life so effectively that I want to revoke her decision making privileges.

But, that's not the purpose of this blog.

The purpose of this blog is to illustrate just how oblivious people can be.

The girls at work know that I'm writing a book. They know that I'm on a deadline. They know that I'll be writing at work, between customers, because our boss is awesome enough to let me use the computer there. Christen also knew the store was dead last night.

The perfect time to spend four paid hours writing, right? Not so much.

She didn't leave until I did. That is, nine o'clock. Four hours after her shift was over.

I tried to write, I did. But when you've got a hyperactive 22 year old yammering in your ear (despite the fact that she knows you have work to do, and can see you attempting to do it), it's very difficult to get anything done.

It's not like I didn't drop hints. She was in the back, eating, still talking, and I said "Hey Christen. Writing here. Put food in your mouth and shut up." She laughed, and kept talking.

*headdesk*

So basically by the end of the night, I told her that she'd wasted four hours of my time.

I think she thought I was kidding.