I have been systematically reading through the archives of mimi smartypants, who is one of those famous-for-the-Internet people (much like famous-for-DC people, I guess) that I can't believe I didn't discover earlier. She is awesome, and I am sure I am subconsciously going to mimic her style, so I might as well do it openly and use a list for starters.
1. Have I told you I have an aquarium at work? I do. It's awesome. It's directly in my line of vision, and I watch my little zebra danios swim around all day. One of them, the biggest one, has taken to guarding the front right corner of the bottom of the tank, where there just so happens to be a very tasteful plastic treasure chest. (My friend R. felt very strongly that all fishtanks should have treasure chests. So be it.) A greedy pirate fish? You decide.
2. I did finally send the letters referenced in the last post. Two rejections and one not-rejection which is really really not yet anything and probably will never be anything, so stay away, evil jinxing kinahurrah eye. Shh. Here, evil jinxing eye, read this part! LOOK OVER HERE: I got one "no new submissions" rejection and one "we like your 'clear prose' but not enough to take you on" rejection. Pay attention to those two instead.
3. I went back to yoga for the first time in almost four months today. We did goddess pose and moon salutes and yay, yoga.
4. J. and I are going to the Outer Banks this weekend for a mini-break, a la Bridget Jones. I have never been there before and am irrationally excited, but please don't let me come back with one of those OBX stickers for my car.
5. Conversation overheard at the gym (between two straight guys, I think, what are the odds?):
Guy 1: So then I said, dude, no way am I going to your house. And she was like, either you are or we're breaking up.
Guy 2: That's why you broke up?
Guy 1, defensive: Yeah! I mean, dude.
Guy 2: I mean, that was totally unreasonable, sure, but I wouldn't have broken up with her for that.
Guy 1: Come on! You would have broken up with her right after that zoo thing!
Guy 2, laughing: Yeah, I guess you're right.
What could "that zoo thing" possibly be? She wanted him to go to the zoo and she wouldn't? She refused to go to the zoo when he wanted to? Something extreme and crazy happened at the zoo that was so extreme and crazy it's self-explanatory to Guy 2?
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
it's hard out here for a wimp
Today is another foray into the Secret World of Daytime. I took the day off of work to further recover from California (a great time, but those redeye flights leave you a little raw) and get everything ready to send to the literary agents. I came to the coffeeshop so I could "focus" better than I do at home, realizing full well that they have wireless here, which makes "focus" very "funny."
So. Here we are.
You do realize that for my job, I write great swaths of text every day. Hundreds and hundreds of words; I just kind of stare at the screen and it happens. Ditto for the novel -- I had writer's block here and there, but it was mostly in the editing process. Quality is another story, but quantity has never been the problem.
I've now written, oh, 11 original words in the space of... three and a half hours. HOURS.
I've consumed two $3.50 decaf skim lattes (yes, I know how lame and "we met at the Starbucks diagonally across the street!" a coffee order that is, thank you), one $7 salad and four animal crackers. They have Nutella and strawberries on the menu here, and I may require an infusion.
I've made polite conversation with the woman sitting next to me, who is applying for a job at the World Bank. I proofread part of her resume for her! It's good.
I also examined her scarf to see if I could figure out its awesome knitting pattern. I couldn't.
I've written six or seven emails. I read an Oscars review and an article about D*na R**ve. I read the Project Runway page and am debating listening to the podcast now. I read blogs like it was my job.
Speaking of jobs, I would be fired from mine -- I would fire myself from mine -- if I worked this way. I'm averaging, what, less than four words an hour? And the thing is, this letter is already essentially done. I'm sort of trying to merge the creative and the straight versions, and put a beginning on it that doesn't make me sound like a leprous supplicant requesting an audience with the pope.
But what I'm really trying to do is put this off as long as possible, because it's scary. While I'm still working on the letter, I don't have to be actually sending the letter anywhere. This is the part I've been dreading, the one where the agents say no in a variety of painful ways -- through ignoring it completely despite your SASE, through stock postcards that suggest they never even open the envelope, through dismissive one-sentence letters of the "just not interested" variety, through one-paragraph letters that say your book is too boring/has been done before/could use a lot of work/isn't the kind of work they're looking for this year/isn't the kind of work they're looking for, ever.
(Did you know you're supposed to be happy about that last kind, because it at least shows they read it, and that means you're doing something right?)
Anyway. Everyone knows this is part of it, the part that you feel like you didn't really sign up for when you started writing a book. And that all good writers, the writers of the best and most famous books ever, get rejected over and over. Their rejection stories are like folklore.
So let's just do this, and enough with the whining. (I'm getting the Nutella...)
So. Here we are.
You do realize that for my job, I write great swaths of text every day. Hundreds and hundreds of words; I just kind of stare at the screen and it happens. Ditto for the novel -- I had writer's block here and there, but it was mostly in the editing process. Quality is another story, but quantity has never been the problem.
I've now written, oh, 11 original words in the space of... three and a half hours. HOURS.
I've consumed two $3.50 decaf skim lattes (yes, I know how lame and "we met at the Starbucks diagonally across the street!" a coffee order that is, thank you), one $7 salad and four animal crackers. They have Nutella and strawberries on the menu here, and I may require an infusion.
I've made polite conversation with the woman sitting next to me, who is applying for a job at the World Bank. I proofread part of her resume for her! It's good.
I also examined her scarf to see if I could figure out its awesome knitting pattern. I couldn't.
I've written six or seven emails. I read an Oscars review and an article about D*na R**ve. I read the Project Runway page and am debating listening to the podcast now. I read blogs like it was my job.
Speaking of jobs, I would be fired from mine -- I would fire myself from mine -- if I worked this way. I'm averaging, what, less than four words an hour? And the thing is, this letter is already essentially done. I'm sort of trying to merge the creative and the straight versions, and put a beginning on it that doesn't make me sound like a leprous supplicant requesting an audience with the pope.
But what I'm really trying to do is put this off as long as possible, because it's scary. While I'm still working on the letter, I don't have to be actually sending the letter anywhere. This is the part I've been dreading, the one where the agents say no in a variety of painful ways -- through ignoring it completely despite your SASE, through stock postcards that suggest they never even open the envelope, through dismissive one-sentence letters of the "just not interested" variety, through one-paragraph letters that say your book is too boring/has been done before/could use a lot of work/isn't the kind of work they're looking for this year/isn't the kind of work they're looking for, ever.
(Did you know you're supposed to be happy about that last kind, because it at least shows they read it, and that means you're doing something right?)
Anyway. Everyone knows this is part of it, the part that you feel like you didn't really sign up for when you started writing a book. And that all good writers, the writers of the best and most famous books ever, get rejected over and over. Their rejection stories are like folklore.
So let's just do this, and enough with the whining. (I'm getting the Nutella...)
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