Delusional

I’ve been in the throes of that delusion. If you’re a writer, you know the one, they’re almost all the same.

There I am imagining that the first time an agent sees my almost  ready query bait, they’ll swoon with love for my awesomeness. I’ll hit send on my queries, and I’ll instantly get five (seriously, I can’t handle the idea of more than five active queries at a time, what a nightmare) requests. One of the agents will fall instantly in love with the manuscript and call to offer representation. (In my delusions, this part happens at the same time I’m defending my dissertation, but that’s just my own personal delusion. Should I ever get THE CALL, I’m sure I’ll be doing something entirely inappropriate for phone answering, like going to the bathroom, or changing a poopy diaper, or waiting in line at the Post Office). After the first offer of representation, I inform the others, and then they all offer representation. (Ah, the delusions are so much fun sometimes).

After picking Agent Fabulous—oh yeah, in my delusion, agent fabulous and I are like super awesome best friends—she doesn’t even want to change much in my manuscript, just a couple of typos (I’m dyslexic, there’ll be some typos). Agent Fabulous submits my manuscript and sells my book in a pre-empt to a major publishing house.

Oh, but that’s not all, my delusions are nothing if not thorough.

That house loves my manuscript soooo much, they decide to bump me up in their print schedule (I’m sorry, it took me a while to come back to my keyboard after laughing so hard, “move up in the schedule” how sweet). And then after it hits the shelves, it lands on the NYT Bestseller list instantly and has a lengthy stay, one so long the NYT decides to add a new category just so other books can be at the top of their list.

Ah isn’t that a fun delusion?

*sigh* I love having that daydream, but then it’s usually followed by another daydream—well daymare perhaps is a better term.

There I am, I’ve written the world’s greatest novel. I query for it, and I don’t get any requests. I revise, no requests. I rewrite: no requests. I trunk the novel in favor of my next novel. I get a day job I hate because I know success is just around the corner. I query the next novel, but no requests. I revise, no requests. I rewrite, no requests. I write the next novel, and start querying it, but after years and years and years of following the process—my dreams crushed into a fine paste perfect for topping muffins—I never ever publish. And worse, I know exactly why I don’t publish: I’m just not good enough. I have no talent. Everyone has just been sweet to me, telling me that they loved my work. My mother, no matter how much she liked it never could be trusted. It was all a delusion, every scrap of it, just like my dreams of being on the next US women’s soccer team (I was 16, and no I wasn’t close) or making the US Olympic team in swimming (I was 12, and no I wasn’t actually that good), or making the US Team in fencing (I went to nationals, but even that wasn’t very close). I’ve failed at other things, so why not writing too? I didn’t have enough talent/gumption/will power/drive/whatever in anything else, so why would writing be any different?

And this is why writers are crazy. We have in us these two diametrically opposed daydreams, secret wishes and darkest fears lurking inside us, just waiting for some outside source to confirm one of them. This is why people go crazy with just the littlest amount of reinforcement in either direction, it’s like we’ve quantized our dreams, it’s all or nothing, and then the truth falls short.

See in the first daydream, all doubts about talent, or ability are utterly abolished, and in the second all fears are confirmed. They are the extremes, and in reality, there is nothing so extreme.

The strange thing, is that early on, it feels like any failure, every rejection, means you’re on the second path, not the bestseller. Almost worse though, each new project is like a do over, you get to try on that bestseller dream again.

So here I am, nearing the start of another journey with a new query bait and I have my two dreams, both evil in their own ways. Sure I'm over here hoping for what's behind door number one, but I know better. I've girded the loins and battened the hatches, I'm ready for my rejections storm. All any of us can do is remind ourselves to brace for rejection, but be prepared for success (more on that later).

War on Monday

Right, so I’d thought I had mastered the arts of War and Mondays long ago.

I was wrong.

My War on Monday started Sunday night. Last night, I put the dogs out and heard a cute little chirping. I thought, huh, odd, for the quail to be so close to the house, but hey, water in the desert, I’m sure they’re just here for the water. My big dogs rustled around in the back yard for a while, then came in, but the chirping continued.

I checked the source, and I had three orphaned hatchling quail stuck in my flowerbed. Mama had led them into a place they couldn’t get themselves out of and abandoned them. Not good. I went back inside to check the interwebs and our own local wildlife rescue. After checking the site and calling the number, I was armed with gloves, a box and a mission to reunite the little chicks with their mother.

I went back outside found the little guys and started trying to locate the mama bird, but then I heard a “beep beep.”

Now I don’t know how many people know this, but the original Looney Tunes were actually made in Albuquerque, New Mexico. That’s why Bugs always says things like “I should have turned left in Albuquerque.” It’s also the premise for the whole road runner cartoon set. Those birds are ridiculous, and while Mel Blanc may not have gotten the sound quite right, they really do make a beeping noise sort of like a fire alarm.

Seriously.

But where things are a bit off is in the diet of the road runner. They don’t eat seeds. In fact, their preferred diet is hatchling. They’ll eat a baby bunny if one presents itself, and I’ve seen them take down cicadas and worms, and well they’re definitely meat eaters. And I had three little tasty morsels chirping like mad for their Mama.

We packed up those orphans, and taped the box shut and put it in the garage. Then the dreams. I perseverate. No really, I get something in my mind and I just can’t get it out of my head. So, after a sleepless night waking up in a panic anytime a roadrunner came by the house (they were not going to eat my baby birds!).

So I started my War on bad ground, tired, with more problems than usual. Yeah, it just wasn’t looking good for the day when I bumped out of bed. I’d run by the wildlife rescue before dropping my daughter off at day care. No big deal.

Oh, but wouldn’t it be better to just reunite them with the covey? They are right there, right at the bird feeder. So I opened up the hatchlings box and tipped it so they could get out. I put it right next to the feeder, and sure enough they started chirping their little heads off. But did they go to the bird feeder? Of course not. Why would they do the smart thing?

Those little guys went straight for the street. And then I heard the ominous beep beeping of a road runner, looking for a three egg omelet. Yeah, not good, so I decided to package them back up and take them to rescue after all.

Right.

You’ve heard of herding cats with a helicopter? Think that but then make all the cats about the size of two quarters stacked on each other. Exhausted, worried about these silly little quail who’d weaseled their way into my heart, and now chasing them out of the road and back up against the house to catch them.

Now I have a box of excited, overly loud crazy hatchlings who’ve tasted freedom, taped up in the back of the car. I package everyone up and we head out for the daily commute.

Then, my daughter, who has been happily eating her cheerios up till this point, decides that stuffing cheerios up her nose is fun. Yeah, that’s how you know you’re a mom: anyone else would have a hard time coming up with a good way to put fun and cheerios up the nose in the same sentence, but I routinely get to say things like “Honey, don’t lick the wall” or “Sweat pea, we don’t make sand castles with the cat litter.” Still, it’s all fun and games until Mom has to make an emergency traffic maneuver because child can’t get said cheerios out of the nose and is panicking.

Yup.

So at this point, I have a box of chirping quail in my car, and a traumatized two year old with a cheerio up her nose.

I wasn’t far from my normal doctor’s office, so I just went right on in. And then I had to explain to the receptionist, the intake nurse, the cashier and the doctor, that my otherwise healthy child is here today because she’s stuffed Cheerios up her nose, and oh, by the way could we hurry this up? I parked in the shade, but there’s a box of quail in my car, and I don’t want to leave them there for too long.

*Sigh*

Eventually, everyone made it to where they were supposed to be—well except the quail who should be with their mommy. When I did finally make it home (I work from home some time), instead of a road runner at my house, I had a sharp shinned hawk at the bird feeder not ten feet from my kitchen window. Maybe those little quail are safer with the rescue people.

Geeking out

Right, so I’m over here geeking out about the faculty they’ve posted over at WriteOnCon (you'll have to scroll down to get the full list of faculty as they've had two announcements). One of the people they’ve announced (note how I’m not using names, that might be rude) is an editor at a publishing house I’ve thought my query bait would fit. Speaking of query bait, I’ve actually stopped querying with it, and now I’m going to talk about my process, because I like to share too much.

When I first wrote my query bait, almost two years ago now, I didn’t really know what I was doing—well, I don’t really claim to know what I’m doing now, but I’ve done some research so I’m less clueless. When I grew up, fantasy novels tended to start with these lugubrious beginnings that told a story that took until page 30 or 40 for the plot to kick in. Seriously, the style for fantasy in the sixties and seventies, is pretty slow, and when I was a kid (in the eighties), I only read the books my mom had or that I picked up for a quarter at the used bookstore. We didn’t even have a new bookstore in town (not even my town, mind you, it was the nearby “big” town) until I was in fifth grade (that store is still doing well, actually). So when I wrote my book, despite having read a ton of other more recent fiction, I wrote my book like those beloved classics from my youth.

Needless to say, that manuscript hasn’t exactly been burning up the request hotlines. Add to it the fact that most of the agents I queried early on got to see my biggest mistakes, you know, waking up from a dream, POV merry-go-round, nothing but description. In short, I burned a lot of chances with an unfortunate manuscript. The story is awesome sauce on toast; the execution? Not so much. I wrote two sequels for that story, and I even had a third planned.

Still, it’s a lot of work to be that stupid, and even I woke up to the fact that sending out my manuscript with the equivalent of post it notes that said “Please read it, it gets good after about the first fifty page; even my mean sister likes it” probably wasn’t working. Yeah, did I mention marketing is my other weak point?

I started to see that what I needed to do was to try another story. I had most of one, but I hadn’t really fleshed it out, it hadn’t been the lightning strike of previous ideas, where one minute no novel existed in my brain, and the next minute: ding, one novel, ready to order. But, I didn’t really think much would come of it. It was my practice novel. So I thought, “What the hell, write the novel you want.” And I did. I gave it my snarky voice, my “I didn’t fit in as a teenager.” I put my main characters up against kidnapping trolls and my hero got to save the day with a big damn sword of DOOM. Okay, well, it’s more like a rapier of doom, but my point is, it was fun. And actually, kind of decent. That really shocked me, actually. I didn’t think anyone but me would even want to read something like that, but again, the dumb, it blinds me sometimes. My betas reported such things as laughing out loud. How could that be? It was my crappy practice novel.

And then I realized the important part of my practice piece: I gave it my voice, my sarcastic, obnoxious, take no bull, snarky voice.

It was a definite flash bang sort of moment, because most of my fiction writing up to that point didn’t have my voice. I’d written an awesome story like I was going to submit it to an academic journal. “Just the facts, ma’am.” And I’d written a whole series of them. Silly me.

So even though there's someone I'm dying to show it to, I've pulled my query bait in favor of better writing. But I'm not going unarmed, I'm bringing my practice piece, the novel that got an E on its O.W.L. (I feel under qualified to give it an Outstanding since it really only Exceeds Expectations as far as I can tell).

And still a full week before the con.

"Now the nightmare's real"

Okay, so Dr. Horrible isn’t here yet, but soon, my pretties, soon. 

Right, so I’m hunched over and cackling like Frankenstein because I’ve started my costumes. Seems early for Halloween, but no, no, I’m on my way to a Fan Convention. I have three costumes planned so far, but there could be more. Right now, I’m doing a day as a Brown Coat (there are five people in the group I’m going with, so we’re basically going as a mob), one day for Dr. Horrible (because he has a Ph.D. in Horribleness), and one day as the Faerie godmother from Shrek. 

The Dr. Horrible costume is much harder than it appears, and I have to say, in general, follow the pattern. I’m making one up as I go along, and I’m not very good at it. I’ll probably relate this to writing at some point… maybe not. Like I said, pictures soonish (mostly because they’ll be funny if nothing else).

And speaking of pictures, here are two from my trip to California. 

This is what Hopland looks like. It’s a very small town, and I have plans for using it for a novel I’ve got planned out (or at least a concept). 

And this is a typical picture of the Mendocino Headlands, 

so, yeah, picturesque, lovely, and all around relaxing.

Aack! the vacation ate my motivation

I’m back, and for the record, traveling through airports with a two year old as a travelling companion is no slice of cake. That being said, I had a great time. California is, as always, California. The hills were golden blond, dotted with green oaks. The forests were in full bloom.

I got to pick blackberries (just coming ripe), wade in the ocean, make wreaths of lavender for my daughter’s hair, stroll through acres and acres of vineyards, and generally enjoy all the things I can’t do in Albuquerque. Pictures forthcoming.

But now I’m back, and the vacation is definitely over. I’m so far behind on all my work, and my play, I hardly know where to start. So, I’ll go in order. That means I’ve got four critiques that’ll be going out sometime soon.

I’ll be caught up soon, so we’ll just see where things are by the end of the week, but expect my normal posting schedule of Monday, Wednesday, Friday.