Realms of the Raven

Hallelujah!!! I had a terrific time, met and chatted with a lot of people, have some submissions to send out and had some strange personality transplant that turned me into — gasp — a social butterfly of some sort.

I finally got to meet Jaynie (who shared a room with my buddy Jo and myself and I hope I didn’t scare her off)! I also spent a lot of time with my friends Jade Buchanan and Michelle Bardsley.

Some folks I merely got to meet in passing and would have loved to have an actual conversation but things moved fast sometimes. I was a bit bummed by this but oh well. I am, after all, about as far from important as it can get. LOL

I was thrilled to see old and new friends. I adored Jackie Frank as much as I thought I would. I loved meeting Joy and the other Joyfully Reviewed folks there. It’s always terrific to see MacKenzie McKade, Cheyenne McCray, Jet Mykles, Sasha White, Vivi Anna, Angela Knight, Camille Anthony, Flash, Mary Janice Davidson, JJ Massa, and a bunch of others only eluding me because my brain is totally fried.

Lots of notes to blog about - but not tonight. Time for bed - I’m exhausted and the huge amounts of cigarette smoke and lack of sleep have kicked my butt. More tomorrow…..

Well, it’s only Monday but between the DDJ’s trials and tribulations and the rejection I got today, it sure feels like a week.

Wow.

On the good side, I think we managed to find and kill a bug that has been very elusive to date and really causing some havoc. It took the efforts of multiple people and a lot of hours chasing down clue after clue, most of which seemed to lead to a dead end. Nothing is quite so frustrating as a bug that you can’t zero in on. And not much is quite as satisfying as finally finding one of these and FIXING it. I almost did a happy dance for a little while there :)

On the other hand, C called me to let me know that I’d received a letter I’d been waiting for. Unfortunately it didn’t contain the words I’d wanted. It was a very nice rejection instead.

So from the heights of conquering an elusive bug to the depths of rejection - all in about 2 hours.

And I never was all that fond of roller-coasters.

The last few days have been exceptionally frustrating. Well, maybe the last week or so. Possibly because of some stress and pressure at the DDJ, I’ve found myself with pretty much zero tolerance for mis-information and people who pass on un-researched urban legends.

These are both personal hot buttons for me anyway and I try to offer correct information when I can, usually with the advice to please research things before blindly passing them on. It’s easy for people to get drawn in by bad information, it’s happened to everyone.

But this week it seems like the combination of my desire to get the correct information out there and the tolerance level of others for bad information are completely at odds. At least once I managed to get myself chastised soundly for what the chastiser presented as the equivalent of kicking a puppy. Well, it was a person, but you know what I mean.

I decided that, since I find it difficult to resist responding and I’m only either pissing everyone off or being completely ignored, I would give myself at least a temporary timeout from most of my groups. Maybe when the stress gets a little less, I can go back.

In the meantime, I guess I’ll see what effect this has on my productivity. Not an experiment I intended to conduct but there has to be a bright side, right

It’s been one heck of a week at the DDJ (Dreaded Day Job). I’m working on getting a release tested in order to deploy it on Monday and it’s been just insane - not because the release is particularly bad but because it’s been the release of a million distractions and randomizing events.

This includes events at the DDJ itself (this happens in a software company and is somewhat expected but they don’t typically cluster themselves quite so tightly), to daycare issues, to shattering another tooth, to my now-6-year-old’s birthday, to Easter, etc. Just a lot of things that needed attention in a very short period of time.

This weekend we’re off to visit C’s parents with the Morganator and I hope I’ll have some writing time in there to revise a story that an editor wanted expanded. I’m taking the laptop with me anyway. Then next week will be deploying this software release at the DDJ as well as planning and packing for RT. Then the week at RT where I don’t REALLY expect to get much writing done. Then back to collapse for a day before returning to who knows what at the DDJ.

April appears to have already gone…. WOW…

Today has been a very interesting day. I’ve received several agent passes on my book, Raven’s White Hart, which I know is pretty much par for the course and got the latest one today.

The most interesting thing to me is that they are all basically a variation on “I’m not excited enough to take you on.” So, being the analytical type, I started to get into some sort of mental spiral about this. Most of these rejections have been based on the first 3 chapters. Some on less than that.

I’m SO tempted to see if I can make some bigger bang at the start of the book. But I really DO think it starts at the right place for the story. My test readers really like it - and no, they aren’t my family and best friends since jr high. They are real, avid readers OF THE GENRE.

For some reason this has now turned into a great bout of “suckitis” and the thought that I could actually have a life again if I just gave up keeps coming up to haunt me. It SOUNDS like temporary over-reacting. But if I logically know this is very common and expected and to not take rejections personally, why am I?

43 is a little old to be trying the “I’m taking my ball and going home” now isn’t it?

I tried to kick myself in the butt. It didn’t have much effect. Sigh.

Frauke of CrocoDesigns, the same wonderful designer who developed my site for me has produced another great presentation in her re-do of Lauren Dane’s web site.

Stop by and take a look around - it’s fantastic!!!

1) Rejection sucks - big time.
It’s not like it was the last agent on earth or this is the only book I have planned but it still sucks. Now I knew that when I received rejections on my fiction, it would hurt more than my non-fiction rejections did.

In non-fiction I had two things on my side. One was that I had an agent between me and the rejections so I didn’t have to actually SEE them. The second was that it wasn’t as important to me. Really.

So today’s agent rejection gave me a taste for how it can go for me - and it was a very nice rejection that the agent basically liked the idea but wasn’t in love with it. I don’t have a problem with it because I do want an agent who really likes my work.

2) Heartburn sucks too
Trying to assuage my sudden confidence drop via Ben & Jerry was NOT a great idea. All I got was a bad case of heartburn and now felt bad physically in addition to mentally. Next time, no ice cream.

3) Sending out more queries is good
I went through my list of agents I’d love to be accepted by and sent out some more queries. This did make me feel better. Well, this and some Tums.

4) Friends are priceless
Who can ever do without friends who listen to you whine and angst, somehow resist the urge to tell you to get a grip and STFU already, and instead pat you on the shoulder and tell you that things will be okay. I love my friends!

5) C is a champ
I sent the rejection email to C and he was a champ. He didn’t tell me to get a bleeping grip but instead tried to talk some logic to me. Not bad when some husbands aren’t even supportive at all!

So I gave myself today as my promised Pity Party but it’s back to work now - I have revisions to finish so I can get this thing to my test readers. Before they kill me.

It’s APRIL - well after the start of Spring.

Yet I had to scrape snow off the car this morning!

The weather has gone psychotic, I swear!

I survived this year - probably because it wasn’t on a work day. The people you live with seem to have a bit more restraint in the jokes they play because they have to live with you, after all.

Co-workers….

Not so much.

And Morganator is still too young to get the idea so I didn’t get any evilness from him either.

Next year I may not be so lucky!

Just a check in today - back to revisions :)