Ah, young love

Since my going on about the project I’ve fallen in love with will get boring real quick, I have a question for everyone who writes:

What is your favorite part of your work in progress?

For me, it’s definitely that moment when I have the idea for my WIP and I know there’s a whole novel in there. I love that feeling. It’s like scoring a goal in a big game, or playing a great solo—at the concert for once! For me, that moment is PFM (Pure Farking Magic).

Of course, the lightning strike never comes at a time when my plate is cleared of all my other projects, so I take notes, and put my idea in a folder where it simmers. And my next favorite moment is when I start. The real reason why these are my favorite parts is because they’re the easiest. My subconscious came up with the idea, and at the beginning, all novels are still great. It’s in the swampy middles, and plot hole filled endings that make us want to tear our hair out and shout invocations at the gods of English.

And speaking of English, here’s a history of English in ten minutes. 

The book I shouldn't be writing

Oh, I can almost hear the internet grown under the weight of yet another writer posting about their process/journey.

I started writing a book. Then because it wasn't working out, I sort of waffled around and stopped. Yeah, I know real original, right? Well it happens to everyone. I posted a little while back on why my projects stall out, and by rights, that should be that, right? Write the book or move on. But for some reason neither answer seemed to work for me. I really felt like I had this book buried in me, somewhere.

I needed to read about ten books before I wrote it (seriously, there’s been some awesome writing in this category in the past, and I don’t want to walk on people’s toes). You’d think that I’d put those ten books right at the top of my list, but nope, I've just procrastinated away. I thought maybe it was because I wasn't getting it, or that I couldn't do military science fiction any more. Then it hit me, those books were exactly the kind of book I don't write: deep, dark, serious, heavy on the science, and all about the trials of war.

Now, considering that I was planning to also write a book about war, it’s a genre I should be cool with. And at some point I was, but nowadays, I need my horror of war mixed liberally with a side of ironic humor. Which is my problem. I loved the concept of the deep, poetic, novel about the choices given to the lowest class of citizen (rogue AI) in the time of interstellar war to determine the continued existence of humanity. It was going to be about sacrifice and finding our places in the universe (even if you are a rogue AI based off the memories of a teenage girl).

Turns out, I’m not that deep.

I couldn’t stand writing from the angsty position of the downtrodden AI. There wasn’t enough conflict. There was no humor. Now, it might come as a shock, but I think humor is the way to go. When my family comes into crisis, it’s like the world stops turning. Then out of the darkness, someone cracks a joke, and we can somehow move on. It’s a thing of magic, the strength of humor. There we all are, thinking the worst thoughts, paralyzed by the sheer tragedy of the situation, and then someone kicks it out into the realm of funny. That’s the moment everyone talks about, laugh or cry. My family has always laughed, sometimes while we’re still crying, but we always laugh. So I need humor.

And as such I’ve started a new project. It should be about the strength of humor and how it saves lives and brings us to a new understanding of our place in the universe. My novel should be about the strength and perseverance of the human race in the face of certain tragedy.

But I’m still not that deep.

This is the semester I plan to defend my big, serious, deep dissertation of doom. I need something a little less “greatness of humanity” and a bit more Sailor Moon with a box of bon bons. So here it is, I’m announcing my newest Work In Progress:

Midlife Super Crisis

It’s knights of the round table meet Green Lanterns (minus the smurfs) plus one sleep-deprived mother of two. As soon as she gets the kids to bed, it’s time to save the multiverse.

Do I think this is salable? Oh hell no. Do I care? Nope. See, I know about the zeit geist, and I’m telling you, this concept—the whole middle aged person finally coming into their superpowers—is about to sweep through the world, so I already know it’s doomed as a project. I’m cool with that, and it takes the pressure off (and I really have enough pressure with the whole Pass This Exam or Leave In Shame thing coming up). Writing for fun is supposed to make me a better person (read: better writer). Besides, writing it is like dipping chocolate in chocolate, then chasing it with chocolate and red wine. Guilty pleasure.

Mmmm chocolate…

Bad Movies....

I tripped across the Worst movies ever made blog fest, and now I have to bag on some beloved movies. 

Now I should start out by saying that I love movies. I even love disaster movies…sort of. As a scientist—one who actually studies the events used to depict the destruction of the world as we know it—most disaster flicks are really, well, sadly…BAD. In fact, they are generally so bad they’re good.  So the first five spaces on this list were saved for disaster flicks, the others are just here for the shame of it.

Number 10: The Day After Tomorrow featured a—wait for it—geologist who travels to Antarctica regularly, but is willing to jump crevasses to retrieve his samples (no, no geologist would leap across an ice pit for a freakin ice sample; seriously, why risk death when you could just drill up another one?). Later in the movie Our Geologist decides to hike across the Eastern Seaboard to save his estranged son in the middle of a snow storm. Unfortunately, this geologist who spends all his time in Antarctica was unable to steal a Skidoo from any of the local ATV shops between DC and New York. Right, I buy that too. No one in the movie has a goram snow plow, and, of course, the wolves escape from the zoo and instantly move to attack people. I buy that, really.

Number 9: Armageddon. You know, I have to admit that the bad in this one was also entertaining, in a tremendously awful sort of way. I saw this humdinger in a tiny pit of a movie theatre somewhere in Texas. We were supposed to be camping that day, but it had been raining so we splurged on a skanky hotel that was right across from a sticky floored movie theatre. This movie “features” such issues as fire in a vacuum, badly done low grav effects, and the general notion that you could split a bolide impact by blowing it up with a nuke.

Yeah…. About that. Oh, and the general idea that the space agency could actually turn around a space mission that quickly is, well, generous.

Number 8: The Core. I’m sure you’re picking up on a theme by this point. Here we have a problem with the core of the Earth and our intrepid geologists are going to save the day. You know, considering how much play geologists get in disaster flicks, you’d think the job was more glamorous. It’s not. Anyhow, the core involves some of my all time favorite: Mantle Diamonds. When they whipped that one out on screen I laughed so hard I was thrown out of the room by the people who’d actually been watching the movie. Even thinking about it now brings a tear to my eye.

Number 7: 2012. Ah, 2012, how awesome of you to make neutrinos overheat the core of the planet *snicker* Right, so this movie had me laughing at the general ridiculous science in the first five minutes. That’s not easy to do. But then, then the continents shift while our heroes are in flight, moving a whopping 1000 miles???!!!!! Dude, that’s impressive stuff. Oh, but that’s not all, “Sir we have something at 29,000 feet.” Perplexed commander “What the hell’s at 29,000 feet.” Geologist (again playing the awesome dude come to save the day) responds with more than a hint of smugness “Mt. Everest.”

Good times.

Number 6: Deep Impact. You know, this movie wouldn’t be so damned high on my list except for the one thing that I ABSOLUTELY hate about disaster flicks: kids in danger. If you have a kid, you know what I mean. If not, let me clue you in: you’ve spent nine months praying that the little squirt makes it to the infant stage. Then, for the whole first year, they could literally just die, for no f&%*ing reason, so you waste a considerable amount of resources worrying and then you decide to go out for a movie, and they have kids dying!!!! Yeah, not fun. So yeah: no babies in danger people.

Number 5: Independence Day. Now, this is what I’m talking about a movie where we save the world by downloading a virus into the alien mothership. Dude. At least this one doesn’t feature a geologist fracking up science.

Number 4: Starship Troopers. Now, I read the book. I didn’t have my hopes high, but aliens who could poop something into orbit? Really? I mean I’m all about no and creative ways to destroy the enemies of Earth, but shit bombs? Oh, and the brainsucker alien at the end *sigh.* I’m sorry Neil Patrick Harris, I love you, but that movie stank.

Number 3: Volcano. Now while many of the other’s have been bad, this one was so bad we couldn’t finish watching it while drinking (it was college). It was that bad.

Number 2: Attack of the Clones. Seriously, this movie had the potential to fish the whole prequel out of the s*!7 hole it was attempting to dive into, and instead of saving face it featured the worst acting by Natalie Portman EVER. And that had to be hard to do. She’s actually pretty good, so how did the director make her look so bad? To this day I’m confused (and Han shot first!).

Number 1: *ANY* Movie directed by Uwe Bole. Period. The worst ever.

Ironically Bonded... is that like being a disenfranchised member of generation X?

So I gave my very first exam ever on Thursday, and my students still don’t know I’m a fraud. All in all, I’d say it looks like I might just live through this experience and have an awesome teaching resume to start hunting for jobs.

That being said, I have a Learn from my Fail.

See, spell checker, it’s your own personal frenemy. It helps you out when you don’t really need it, but when you least expect it, it stabs you in the typo. There was only one typo on the exam (That’s pretty good for me considering I had to rewrite the whole thing the day before I actually gave it: like I said, the learning curve for teaching a lecture course is steep).

It read “Graphite is ironically bonded.”

A student came up to me during the exam and asked if it was right. I told him no, it should be ionically bonded, “ironically bonded is what you’ll be with your classmates at the end of the semester.”

Spell checker, sometimes I hate you, sometimes I love you. No matter what, I watch my back whenever you’re around.

Writing goals

Rachelle Gardner had a great post today about publishing and writing goals. At the end of her post she asked that people list three of their publishing goals. That post went up two hours ago and there’s already 40 odd comments, and my publishing goals are, like my sparks, lengthy stories. So instead of posting there, I thought I’d keep the conversation going and post my publishing goals here. And you are warned, I’m a little wordy at times.

My goals are simple, but behind them is a huge pile of baggage, and I’ll try to explain it as concisely as possible.

1. Publish a book (preferably through a publishing house that pays me to do it)

2. Have complete strangers read my stories.

3. Inspire/ameliorate other people.

I know those goals look pretty simple, so how on earth could there really be more to it than that. I had a dream—oh, don’t worry, I’m not as awesome as MLK Jr. In my dream I had no visions of a brighter tomorrow. I didn’t see racial issues finally alleviated. No cure cancer. While these are all beautiful dreams mine was quite a bit more selfish.

I was a comic book hero.

In my dream I had wings like an angel. I was a warrior princess from another planet. I was a powerful mage, and I was the one person on the planet who could save my entire people from certain destruction—seriously, you’re allowed to laugh at this; my subconscious is a fun place on occasion. In this dream I was challenged to the breaking point. This one dream took place over months and months, I lived another life in one night of sleep. In this dream, people I’d known for my entire life (my dream life) were murdered, and I avenged them. I saved my people, the bad guys hunted me down, wounding me and nearly destroying me and everything I love. But at the very end, when all was truly lost, and I was going to perish—paving the way for evil to descend upon everything I knew and loved—I found the strength to defeat the enemy at any cost. I won.

Pretty cheesy really, but the feeling of empowerment was so overwhelming I didn’t care how cheesy it was. That dream changed my life—well, maybe put it back on track—as I hadn’t even thought about writing in years. In fact, it had been a decade since I’d thought about writing stories. The next day was a field day (not like have fun day, but hike over rocks and map day), and during lunch, instead of eating, I wrote my dream down in my field note book. It was all I could think about all day long. It was all I could think about the next day. I was drunk on the feeling of empowerment. I had done something so impossible, so incredible that I was the new freaking ruler of the world, or so it felt.

At that time in my life I was a young graduate student, and life wasn’t exactly easy. Money was tight, my personal life was troubled, and I was so worried that I’d dragged my family out into a state they all hated to pursue a degree I was certain I was failing. I was convinced I wasn’t good enough. I knew in my heart of hearts that I wasn’t smart enough, and that I was undeserving of the support I was receiving from my family to pursue the crazy dream of academia. It was a really dark place for me, and I’d been there for months. Then I had that dream and suddenly the pressure to perform felt like no big deal. After all, I’d defeated an Elder God to save my people, what was teaching a lab or writing an academic paper? How could something so archaic as grades and money matter after such an accomplishment?

I guess I should say, that no, I didn’t really think any of it was real, but my triumph, even though it was a dream, didn’t come easily. Even in my dream, I felt the pain. I struggled to stand on my own feet. I felt the fire burn me, the cold daggers pierce my flesh. It was so real to me, that even knowing it was a dream didn’t diminish the power of “I did that.”

My subconscious isn’t necessarily an easy place to get along. While I had this incredible dream where I overcame great odds and adversity, I’ve had plenty of dreams where I failed. You know those choose your own adventure books where there’s only one or two paths that actually get you a nice ending? My dreams are like that. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve failed in my dreams. I can’t count the number of times I’ve died in my dreams, so to have one where I actually pulled it out and won was particularly uncommon. I’ve failed more in my dreams than in the real world.

As soon as I could manage, I started writing that dream into a novel. As far as I can tell, that dream saved my career as a graduate student. That dream kept me going through a masters degree. I felt like I needed to write that story. I think at first I started writing that story to hold on to some of the feeling it gave me, but even early on in the writing of it, what I really wanted was to pass that feeling on to other people. My friends were struggling in their lives, and I wanted to show them where I drew my power to just keep smiling in the face of certain doom—you know doom like your car breaking down and you don’t have any money to buy groceries.

That particular novel is unlikely to ever see the light of day, but the idea behind it is the power. If I can give just one person in the world that feeling of empowerment—that confidence—then every unpublished word I write between now and then is worth it.

So there you have it: my publishing goal is to inspire someone with the feeling that no matter their path in life, they can do great and powerful things. It sounds so cheesy like that, but it all boils down to “The power is in you.”

And there you have my publishing goals in a nut shell. Now, having said that, I wouldn’t turn down a nice solid bestseller, or a lengthy full time career as a novelist, but that’s just not why I write. I would call those perks (fun to be sure, but I have other things I need to do).

Dragon*Con: Now in Color

Warning: Long, ridiculous picture filled report ahead.

I know Dragon*Con was a whole week ago, but it seriously took me right up until today for me to start feeling like I have things under control—and by under control, I mean I’ll finish my lecture slides hours before class today instead of minutes.

For those of you who have never been to a Fan Con (not to be confused with a writing conference, though there’s often plenty of advice on that front as well), imagine all the nerdy people you know, then make it cool to be nerdy. People—grown adults to children—go dressed as their favorite characters, so at any moment you might run into a Vulcan chatting it up with Batman done in medieval armor. If you ever go to one of these, be careful who you dress up as (more on that in just a minute).

random disco storm trooper

It’s a pretty unique event when you can bump into comic book heroes (I even saw someone dressed as Kilowag walking around calling people “poozers”), anime characters, be served drinks by R2D2, watch storm troopers face off against cylons. Seriously, more people were in costume than were not. Every major nerdom—err, fandom, was represented. Firefly, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Harry Potter, Anne McCaffrey, Tolkien, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Indiana Jones, Utena, Halo, Resident evil, SAILOR MOON (I ran into three different sailor scout parties!), I could literally just keep listing here and not be done for a long time.

That's my buddy Moose.

This could take forever, but I’ll just drop by the best points. So the first night my group of friends went as Big Damn Heroes (Brown Coats from Firefly). The costume was fun, but the best part were the guns ( I know, violence in entertainment), but not for the reason you think. We’d spent a lot of time spray painting our guns to look a little more steam punk, and one of the people in our party is a leather carver. She made everyone these amazing holsters. The effect: beautiful, futuristic guns in hand crafted leather holsters, worn in the open. That night we ate at an INCREDIBLE restaurant, and our waiter told us that he was warned just after we were seated by the seating hostess “You have guests, and I think they might be packing.” We showed the waiter our guns (painted squirt guns and nerf dart guns, seriously) and had a good laugh all around.

The next morning we had breakfast with Felicia Day (Dr. Horrible, the Guild, Eureka). Okay, well, maybe not quite breakfast with Felica, but she did eat at the table next to ours which was pretty entertaining. Oh, and here’s the side point that I have to make. For those of you who are tall, meeting actors is always a little disappointing. I’m 5’9” and I hate meeting people who’ve been portrayed as really tall, because THEY NEVER ARE. Seriously, Keanu 5’8”, Tom Cruise 5’2”, Robert Downey Jr. 5’8”, that means I’m taller than a lot of these guys playing super heroes. I’ve learned to accept it, because in Hollywood it isn’t who you are, but what you’re standing next to that counts (they actually do have sets built for shorter people).

I went as Dr. Horrible, which was a ton of fun because Captain Hammer (the nemesis) is also a popular choice for Cosplay leading to impromptu reenactments in the halls (Yeah, this sounds nerdier with every word I type). That night there was an elf party, but I didn’t have time to change, so I went as Dr. Horrible (I guess I was looking to expand my territory). So, somewhere floating around on the net is a picture of Dr. Horrible dancing with a bunch of elves. Yeah, nerdier by the second now.

I'm holding my wand like a foil.

The second day of the con I went as the faerie godmother from Shrek. Now, here’s where I have to put in my warning about picking who you go as for Cosplay. See, when people see a faerie godmother, they just want you to grant a wish, so for the most part people are like “Oh, Faerie Godmother, I have a wish,” but then being from Shrek my response is “Oh sweet pea. Happiness is just a tear drop away.” Until I’ve spoken they just think I’m some sweet old lady dressed up as a faerie godmother. Once I’ve spoken they all shrank back in terror. Villains are not supposed to have sparkly makeup. One woman even responded with “Oh, you’re from Shrek,” like I was gum stuck to the bottom of her shoe. While entertaining, as far as getting a solid gut reaction from people, it wasn’t the reaction I had expected. I think next time I’ll make sure my wand is a little more accurate.

yup, there she is, a real live published author with a fandom.

On the third day I didn’t dress up as anyone. Instead, I went to a book signing by Mercedes Lackey (love those books). I figured there wouldn’t be too much trouble getting in to see her, but I thought I should know exactly where the signing was just to be safe. I was wandering around at 8 for a signing at 10. I saw a line near the room I was looking for, and there were already 25 people waiting. I asked, and to my horror, it was the line for Lackey. I made the wild eep noise, because I didn’t have anything for her to sign. I got in line, and consoled myself with just touching greatness (I really love her books). But, by lucky happenstance I happened to have my computer with me (I was planning to work on my dissertation from a nice crowd watching place, but that never panned out), and so I had Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon sign my computer for dissertation defense luck. They thought it was pretty funny, and Larry even drew a little sketch on my computer. Absolutely made the con for me, right there.

Voldemort singing Livin' on a Prayer

That night we went to the Yule Ball, where I wore my McConagull as a Green Lantern prototype, and it went over really well. Everyone loved it. And the Yule ball was hilarious. Voldemort crashed with a huge group of death eaters, and the whole thing was like a high school dance without all the awkward parts. It may have been the best dance I’ve ever been to. I had more fun than at my prom. Yule ball included such moments as Mad Eye Moody air guitaring, wands held high to Livin’ on a Prayer, and other tomfoolery. It was just too much fun.

The last day of the con was exciting for totally different reasons. The last day of any conference is always more subdued. There’s saying good bye to people, buying the last minute stuff from the vendor’s tables, and trying to get to the airport.

Oh, and then there’s tornadoes from Tropical Storm Lee. Yikes. So our flights were all delayed and many of my friends got to spend too much time in airports trying to get home, but yes, awesome con.

I still smile when I see those silly signatures on my computer.

Squee Like a Fangirl

I write a lot about writing, and I realize that I spend a ton of time talking about writing (it's sort of everywhere in my life, dissertation, novels, scientific papers, etc.).

I have some confessions to make. When I was ten, I was a huge fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Seriously, I owned all the movies, I even liked that stupid song by Vanilla Ice (you know, “Go ninja, go ninja, go!”

Then I made a mistake, I let someone know I was going to go see one of the movies. Well, you know how young people can be, they tormented the crap out of me because it wasn’t cool to like TMNT. It had been a big thing, but by ten I was supposed to have moved on to other more grown up things like make up and doing my hair (yeah, I still don’t wear makeup). As I was being teased miserably, I noticed that my fellow nerds had abandoned me. It was like the savannah: I was a zebra, and the mean students were lions, and all the other zebras were staying away in hopes that the lions wouldn’t notice all the other nerds in life.

Since then I’ve been very careful to let other people know what I like lest I be judged again. Because of that I didn’t mention that I was completely over the moon for Sailor Moon. And whenever I watch a movie I completely fall in love with, I’m really careful who I let in on it. But I’ve decided that’s dumb. See, I watched a movie this summer and I absolutely fell in love with it, and the concept behind it. It wasn’t a very good movie, I’ll say that right up front. In fact, there was a point in the movie where the character motivations were completely dropped, much to the detriment of the movie. Other than that moment, it was awesome.

The movie (don’t judge): The Green Lantern.

And then I started reading the comics. I think I’m going to be sending my money to Green Lantern trades for the rest of my life. I’m totally smitten.

At Dragon*Con, I went as McConagull as a Green Lantern (a costume which could, at best, be called a prototype), and I got more fist bumps and pictures taken than all my other costumes put together (here I am with a Zorro as a Green Lantern).

It’s good to have stuff that we love that has nothing to do with writing, so what makes you squee like a fangirl?

A Place Holder post

It's not often that someone writes a song about something so important in my life, but thanks to They Might Be Giants I can now direct people to this video when they ask about what I study.

Revisions, they're like potato chips

Okay, I’m back from Dragon*Con, but I’m not going to talk about that today. Seriously, that’ll be a big post with awesome pictures and a lot of fangirl squee on my part.

Today I'm going to talk about revisions and the process because I don't drone on about myself enough on this blog (that was sarcasm, for the record).

Generally speaking most people are too close to their work to realize that it should be revised in a particular way (sorry to use their as a single gender neutral pronoun, seriously, the English language desperately needs one). Everyone has this problem to some degree. What makes it hard is when you get feedback that’s all “Yay, I loved this, I wouldn’t change a thing.” That’s great to hear—and trust me, I love hearing that all my hard work has paid off and my manuscript is perfect—except when the manuscript isn’t perfect. Okay, well maybe perfect isn’t the right word for it; I mean, perfect? That’s a high bar, and I haven’t seen too many people cross it, so we’ll go for competent, or maybe even great. Passable and good are different, and sometimes it can be really hard to see what would take a manuscript from good to great, or okay to superb.

And for me, if it’s something I’ve written, generally I can’t see what needs help at all. Of course my writing is perfect. Not! (Wait, did I just date myself with an obnoxiousism from my own youth? Any second I’m going to see Bill and Ted in their phone booth). For me, revisions, the ones I really need are like goals in hockey.

Yeah, that’s a great simile. I’m sure everyone’s rolling their eyes at me, but hear me out. See I play forward, and win or lose, there’s really only one thing a forward is supposed to do: score goals. And I’m not very good at it. I’m a play maker, I do a lot of set up, but I’m not very good at putting the biscuit in the basket (as they say). That is, I’m not very good at it until suddenly I am. It’s like an invisible force field covering the goal is removed, and the puck just can’t get in their fast enough. It’s this crazy feeling where it’s all resistance and it feels like it will never happen, but once it does it feels like it was so easy that I find myself scratching my head. Why was it so hard to get that silly little three inch disc of rubber through the four feet between the goal posts?

It’s a matter of perception. The mountain looks bigger from the bottom. And revisions seem impossible, and improbable, so why bother. The manuscript is already good enough.

That’s about the time that really great feedback comes in for me. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about things, and decided that my work is already good enough. Then someone makes a suggestion, and I find myself scratching my head. Why was that so hard to see before? Why couldn’t I have swapped that stuff around myself? The suggestions were so simple, so perfect, that I looked at my manuscript and did a face palm. It was that obvious, and it almost felt like it was my own idea.

Which brings me to the present. *Sigh* I’m revising my manuscript. It’s a good thing because it will make the manuscript SO. MUCH. BETTER. And it’s a bad thing because two weeks ago I entered my first page into a contest. Regardless of whether I win or not, I’m smashing my head against my desk. This feedback came totally out of the blue, I really didn’t expect it, and I’d already put all the other feedback I’ve gotten to good use. At the time, it really was “ready to go” (one of the rules of the contest). But now that I have this awesome feedback, it’s most definitely NOT ready. ::Bangs head on desk again for good measure::

It’s not like I really thought I had a major chance with this contest (I mean seriously, publishing is a wild competitive business, and my work might not be there yet, it might not be the agent’s cup of tea, it might sound like fifty million other queries she’s just read, you know—publishing), but on the off chance that I sparked some interest, I know I’m just going to kick myself forever if Agent Awesome wants to read my stuff. I mean crap, I put it out there with the big ole stamp of “READY FOR PRIME TIME,” and now I know in my deepest heart that it wasn’t. That just can’t look good “Uhhh, you wanted to read *my* manuscript? Uh, but it’s, uh, not umm ready yet.”

I feel like I haven’t done my presentation for the end of the class, and I’m going to have to beg for an extension, only worse, there isn’t an extension to be had, just a pass and a note to not call again with this project.

So yeah, I’m in the most awkward point of hoping that my first page doesn’t win something, but at the same time really really hoping that it does create enough interest for Agent Awesome to be like “Sounds cool, take your time and finish it right, then send it my way.”

I’d say “Learn from my fail,” but I really didn’t expect my perception to change so completely on this manuscript to the point where I’d almost like to redact my entry.

Still, I’m told this is a fairly common problem writers find themselves in, so I’m sure Agent Awesome has seen this sort of thing before. And hey, I might not win anything, so this could be the classic case of anxiety over nothing.

Right, back to work for me.