Tonight I bathed my kids, rinsing suds from their hair, water rushing down their backs in soft, streaming rivulets, the scent of Johnsons soap hanging in the air.
I put their pyjamas on. We sat down and read stories. Payton is learning to read. I pointed words out to her carefully. I cleaned the kitchen. I put a load of laundry in. And for once in my life, I was grateful for these tasks. These wonderful distractions that smell of baby soap and laundry detergent and bubble gum toothpaste. Their warm bodies that press against me when we read in a slow cadence. Their incessant, sometimes overlapping, chatter.
My beautiful, noisy, distractions.
I reflected tonight on the irony that I complained bitterly that these same distractions made it nearly impossible for me to write Having Grace.
And now that the writing is done, it is these same distractions that keep me sane while I watch and wait for word on my full.
Life has a certain structure to it. A loose and chaotic, but charming nonetheless, structure.
What am I so afraid of? I asked myself as I tucked my little kids into their respective Princess and Toy Story beds, hair spilling across their faces, back lit by the soft glow of a Sesame Street Night Light.
In many ways, I am already rich.
In many ways, I am already successful.
In many ways- in most ways, actually, I've already made it.
I remind myself why I write.
Not to be represented.
Not to see my name in print (although, OK, I wouldn't totally hate that.)
Not to get rich.
But simply because I enjoy doing it.
And because I honestly don't know how not to do it.
So I've let it go. Whatever happens, happens. With Tricia, with anyone. With Having Grace, with any future projects.
My manuscript is my baby, yes, to a certain extent. But I have real babies.
My beautiful, wonderful, distractions.
Showing posts with label Submissions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Submissions. Show all posts
Friday, September 17, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
State of Disaster
I spent seven hours last night reading my manuscript.
I recant what I said yesterday about still laughing out loud when I read it.
There was no laughing out loud. I have now, officially, read it too many times. I'm kind of starting to hate it.
It makes me sick. Literally. I got motion sickness from scrolling through the document, and a headache as well.
And my house looks like a pack of rabid animals ransacked it, which in a way- is exactly what happened.
At one point, I glanced into the living room to check on this kids. They were supposed to be watching Marmaduke. Alex was sitting, sans diaper, on a pot.
And no, when I say 'pot' I do not mean 'potty.'
I mean an actual pot.
"Where's your diaper?" I asked him, alarmed.
"In the wagon," he said.
Naturally.
"Why did you take it off?"
"Because I pooped."
Oh God. Which was bad enough.
But then I caught the dog in a compromising position with the diaper.
This morning when I woke up and opened the fridge I found the entire crate of juice boxes I had bought for back to school opened, with straws poked in them, some in various states of emptiness.
"I did it!" Alex said, proudly.
Note to self: do not leave two year old unattended.
Well, in retrospect that should go without saying.
It was with some happiness that I hit the send button and sent that blasted manuscript away.
But then when I crawled into bed, I started second guessing everything. I should have changed that, I should have looked at this or that- even though I did, but I should have looked harder. I remember that feeling of intense vulnerability from the last time I sent out the full.
It almost made me wish that I hadn't brought any of this on myself at all.
Almost.
But not quite.
Anyways, at least I didn't have to print it off this time.
But then I started to become paranoid and agitated that it got lost in the cyber world. I still don't completely trust my hotmail account since it was hacked, though I did recover everything and they say it's OK.
Note to self: Never give your password to so called Hot Mail Account Manager.
In retrospect, that, too sounds like it should be obvious.
Anyways, things are out of my hands, at least for the time being.
And now we wait.
And restock the juice boxes.
And the cookware.
I recant what I said yesterday about still laughing out loud when I read it.
There was no laughing out loud. I have now, officially, read it too many times. I'm kind of starting to hate it.
It makes me sick. Literally. I got motion sickness from scrolling through the document, and a headache as well.
And my house looks like a pack of rabid animals ransacked it, which in a way- is exactly what happened.
At one point, I glanced into the living room to check on this kids. They were supposed to be watching Marmaduke. Alex was sitting, sans diaper, on a pot.
And no, when I say 'pot' I do not mean 'potty.'
I mean an actual pot.
"Where's your diaper?" I asked him, alarmed.
"In the wagon," he said.
Naturally.
"Why did you take it off?"
"Because I pooped."
Oh God. Which was bad enough.
But then I caught the dog in a compromising position with the diaper.
This morning when I woke up and opened the fridge I found the entire crate of juice boxes I had bought for back to school opened, with straws poked in them, some in various states of emptiness.
"I did it!" Alex said, proudly.
Note to self: do not leave two year old unattended.
Well, in retrospect that should go without saying.
It was with some happiness that I hit the send button and sent that blasted manuscript away.
But then when I crawled into bed, I started second guessing everything. I should have changed that, I should have looked at this or that- even though I did, but I should have looked harder. I remember that feeling of intense vulnerability from the last time I sent out the full.
It almost made me wish that I hadn't brought any of this on myself at all.
Almost.
But not quite.
Anyways, at least I didn't have to print it off this time.
But then I started to become paranoid and agitated that it got lost in the cyber world. I still don't completely trust my hotmail account since it was hacked, though I did recover everything and they say it's OK.
Note to self: Never give your password to so called Hot Mail Account Manager.
In retrospect, that, too sounds like it should be obvious.
Anyways, things are out of my hands, at least for the time being.
And now we wait.
And restock the juice boxes.
And the cookware.
Monday, September 13, 2010
State of Shock
I had completely abandoned any and all hope that I had for my manuscript, Having Grace. The querying process was wearing me down.
So I was surprised to open up my inbox this morning and see this:
Dear Randine,
Thank you for your query. I enjoyed reading the pages you sent of HAVING GRACE and would love to read more — would you please send me the full MS as a pdf attachment?
Many thanks, I’ll be back in touch after I’ve had a look.
I read the first sentence, thinking 'here we go again', another rejection: "Thank you for your query, however..."
I about fell off my chair to see the complete and utter lack of that hated word "however."
It's against my better judgement to post anything on here about it.
If the agent reads this (Tricia, her name is. Don't you just love it? I could really see myself bonding with her, calling her "Trish" someday.), it makes me look - or sound- desperate.
I mean, if a guy asked you out on a date, and you said yes but then you read on his website that he nearly fell off his chair when you said yes, you might start wonder about him. Personally- I might run the other way.
But I think it should be OK.
No one from New York is reading this.
So I will spend tonight reading through my manuscript for the billionth time.
I just can't send it out without reading it first, once again.
But no matter how many times I read it, I still laugh out loud, which you wouldn't think I would since I wrote the thing and I know exactly what's coming next.
And then we will wait and see.
This is my third request. I'm expecting another rejection.
Sometimes, honestly, I wonder what I'm more afraid of- being rejected, or not. It sounds stupid. Maybe it is. But sometimes I wonder: can I really bring it?
But, we'll cross that bridge when we get there-- and I'll use 'when' instead of 'if', even though I'm kinda tempted to use 'if.'
And I'm using 'we' instead of "I"-because whatever happens next, you guys will be there to help me through it.
Right?
So I was surprised to open up my inbox this morning and see this:
Dear Randine,
Thank you for your query. I enjoyed reading the pages you sent of HAVING GRACE and would love to read more — would you please send me the full MS as a pdf attachment?
Many thanks, I’ll be back in touch after I’ve had a look.
I read the first sentence, thinking 'here we go again', another rejection: "Thank you for your query, however..."
I about fell off my chair to see the complete and utter lack of that hated word "however."
It's against my better judgement to post anything on here about it.
If the agent reads this (Tricia, her name is. Don't you just love it? I could really see myself bonding with her, calling her "Trish" someday.), it makes me look - or sound- desperate.
I mean, if a guy asked you out on a date, and you said yes but then you read on his website that he nearly fell off his chair when you said yes, you might start wonder about him. Personally- I might run the other way.
But I think it should be OK.
No one from New York is reading this.
So I will spend tonight reading through my manuscript for the billionth time.
I just can't send it out without reading it first, once again.
But no matter how many times I read it, I still laugh out loud, which you wouldn't think I would since I wrote the thing and I know exactly what's coming next.
And then we will wait and see.
This is my third request. I'm expecting another rejection.
Sometimes, honestly, I wonder what I'm more afraid of- being rejected, or not. It sounds stupid. Maybe it is. But sometimes I wonder: can I really bring it?
But, we'll cross that bridge when we get there-- and I'll use 'when' instead of 'if', even though I'm kinda tempted to use 'if.'
And I'm using 'we' instead of "I"-because whatever happens next, you guys will be there to help me through it.
Right?
Thursday, August 13, 2009
The Climb
Well. My manuscript has been successfully delivered. Its always such an anxious feeling for me whenever anyone reads my stuff-- well except for this blog, of course, because no one reads it anyways. But I mean, my real stuff-- there's a part of me that wants to share it but a part of me that recoils at the thought of being evaulated. So even when my own mother read it I nervously awaited her response. You can only imagine how it feels knowing that someone in the biz. is reading it, or will be shortly. The upside is that since this all began I've lost about four pounds, which is great, I haven't lost weight like this since the mouth infection.
On the way to work this morning I heard Miley Cyrus's 'The Climb' and it so summed up everything that I was feeling. "This dream I'm dreaming... yada, yada... there's a voice inside my head saying 'you'll never make it', but I gotta be strong, gotta keep my head held high" And "it's always gonna be an uphill battle, sometimes I'm gonna have to lose" Anyways. I know Miley and me are different, but certainly I found her words inspiring and relatable, which is weird, considering the source.
Enought about that, though.
Onto other news. I had an eye exam this morning. Forty five minutes of eye charts and lasers in my eyes and puffs of air in my eyes to tell me that I have 20/20 vision, although I still can get glasses if I want to. For a while there, the optometrist was scrutinizing my eyes so intently with a micropcope, all the while asking if I had a family history of blindness, asking me when was the last time I had seen my family doctor, that I thought 'Oh Dear God. This can't be right. There's something wrong with me eyes.' And though I wasn't sure exactly what they worst case scenario was (cancer?? blindness?? MS?? glaucoma??), I was pretty sure that I had it. But thankfully everything is OK. At least for the time being. He did say that he wanted to see me back in two years to recheck everything, so I don't know if thats a good sign or not.
Probably not.
Last night we watched a movie, Obsessed and it was pretty OK. But I have to say, I totally dont' get why actors get paid so much. Like I hear them talking on TV about how hard they work and how burned out they are, and it's like OK, really?? How about you start paying me several hundred thousand dollars to sit in a makeup chair for four hours getting my hair and makeup done, and then go and recite a few lines, then call it a wrap and go clubbing for the rest of the night?? You wanna know hard work. This is what my evening last night consisted of:
5:00 leave the clinic and go pick up the kids, drive through traffic in heavy rain
5:15 arrive at daycare to be informed that Alex has just had a BM ('you're off duty' I told my daycare provider)
5:22 Arrive home and change Alex's diaper
5:25 Start making supper with Alex clinging onto my leg.
5:40 Throw in a load of laundry while the meat is cooking.
5:50 Give Alex an impromty bath because he has taken his diaper off and peed on the floor.
5:55 Wash the kitchen floor
6:10 Give Payton an impromptu bath because she's jealous that Alex gets to have a bath
6:15 Stop the meat from burning, put the rice on, holding a disgruntled Alex on my hip and listening to Payton screaming from the bathtub that she wants out.
6:20 Get Payton out of the tub
6:30 Wash the bathroom floor as she somehow managed to dump nearly the entire contents of the bathwater onto the floor
6:40 Feed the kids their supper
6:50 Move the wash into the dryer
7:00 Clean up the kids after their supper, change them into thier PJs
7:15 Clean the kitchen
7:40 Clean the dog puke in the living room
7:45 Clean the dog puke in my bedroom
8:00 put the kids to bed.
8:10 Eat a leftover meatball and feed one to the dog.
8:15 Clean up the meatball that the dog just puked up.
8:20 Go in to settle Alex (again)
8:30 Sweep the living room floor
And that's AFTER I worked for eight hours.
And you know what I have to look forward to?? Dental extractions. I'll be getting my wisdom teeth pulled in October, and I'm actually looking forward to staying in bed all day, strung out on pain killers.
Anyways, that's enough for one day.
Thanks for reading.
On the way to work this morning I heard Miley Cyrus's 'The Climb' and it so summed up everything that I was feeling. "This dream I'm dreaming... yada, yada... there's a voice inside my head saying 'you'll never make it', but I gotta be strong, gotta keep my head held high" And "it's always gonna be an uphill battle, sometimes I'm gonna have to lose" Anyways. I know Miley and me are different, but certainly I found her words inspiring and relatable, which is weird, considering the source.
Enought about that, though.
Onto other news. I had an eye exam this morning. Forty five minutes of eye charts and lasers in my eyes and puffs of air in my eyes to tell me that I have 20/20 vision, although I still can get glasses if I want to. For a while there, the optometrist was scrutinizing my eyes so intently with a micropcope, all the while asking if I had a family history of blindness, asking me when was the last time I had seen my family doctor, that I thought 'Oh Dear God. This can't be right. There's something wrong with me eyes.' And though I wasn't sure exactly what they worst case scenario was (cancer?? blindness?? MS?? glaucoma??), I was pretty sure that I had it. But thankfully everything is OK. At least for the time being. He did say that he wanted to see me back in two years to recheck everything, so I don't know if thats a good sign or not.
Probably not.
Last night we watched a movie, Obsessed and it was pretty OK. But I have to say, I totally dont' get why actors get paid so much. Like I hear them talking on TV about how hard they work and how burned out they are, and it's like OK, really?? How about you start paying me several hundred thousand dollars to sit in a makeup chair for four hours getting my hair and makeup done, and then go and recite a few lines, then call it a wrap and go clubbing for the rest of the night?? You wanna know hard work. This is what my evening last night consisted of:
5:00 leave the clinic and go pick up the kids, drive through traffic in heavy rain
5:15 arrive at daycare to be informed that Alex has just had a BM ('you're off duty' I told my daycare provider)
5:22 Arrive home and change Alex's diaper
5:25 Start making supper with Alex clinging onto my leg.
5:40 Throw in a load of laundry while the meat is cooking.
5:50 Give Alex an impromty bath because he has taken his diaper off and peed on the floor.
5:55 Wash the kitchen floor
6:10 Give Payton an impromptu bath because she's jealous that Alex gets to have a bath
6:15 Stop the meat from burning, put the rice on, holding a disgruntled Alex on my hip and listening to Payton screaming from the bathtub that she wants out.
6:20 Get Payton out of the tub
6:30 Wash the bathroom floor as she somehow managed to dump nearly the entire contents of the bathwater onto the floor
6:40 Feed the kids their supper
6:50 Move the wash into the dryer
7:00 Clean up the kids after their supper, change them into thier PJs
7:15 Clean the kitchen
7:40 Clean the dog puke in the living room
7:45 Clean the dog puke in my bedroom
8:00 put the kids to bed.
8:10 Eat a leftover meatball and feed one to the dog.
8:15 Clean up the meatball that the dog just puked up.
8:20 Go in to settle Alex (again)
8:30 Sweep the living room floor
And that's AFTER I worked for eight hours.
And you know what I have to look forward to?? Dental extractions. I'll be getting my wisdom teeth pulled in October, and I'm actually looking forward to staying in bed all day, strung out on pain killers.
Anyways, that's enough for one day.
Thanks for reading.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
I'm not cut out for this.
Today, my baby (weighing in at 1.66 kg, by the way-- the things you can find out on Canada Post.ca) arrived in Missisauga, ON. I am like totally freaking out right now. Woulda, coulda, shoulda. I keep thinking "I should have changed that part or this or that, I should have edited this or that or took that chapter out or made it longer or shorter or less wordy, etc. And then on top of that I'm thinking 'am I SURE that the pages are collated properly? That the the chapters are sequential? That the page breaks are where they should be? That I double checked all the spelling?? It's like when I was in University, after I turned in my exams I would just ruminate about it all the time, thinking 'oh I messed this up or that'. But then I would get my exam back and get like a ninety one on it. So hopefully this will be similar. I'm always my own worst critic.
Anyways, I think I'll just keep my day job where I'm a lot less vulnerable. Nurses are very much in demand, so I feel quite confident. But writing its totally different. Everyone thinks they can write the Great American Novel, where as the reality is that only a very exclusive few can. And what makes me think that I can be a part of that group??
A hope? A dream?
A delusion.
But I'll just think positive thoughts, like they say in The Secret. I've never actually read the book, but I got the jist of it second hand vis-a-vis a Saturday Night Live sketch. I can. I will. I might. But then again I might not. Probably not. Argh. I'll have to start over.
Anyways. Nothing else really new with me. Cucumber Breath is back from her holidays. I anticipated a somewhat strained convo with her, but guess what?? Now we're friends!! Can you believe that she has a cat named Zoey as well!! What are the chances of that?? They have to be like a million to one. And not only that, but her Zoey had a litter of kittens as well!! So we talked cat talk, you know whether they ate thier placentas and that, and I think we really bonded. See, that's all you have to do is just find something that you have in common. That's what all those people in the Middle East should do. Do they still have conflict there? I think so.
So now that Cucumber Breath and I are friends again, I have a new sworn enemy, Courier Cow. But I can't write too much on here about her, as I fear being sued for libel. I have no idea at all whatsoever what libel is, but I don't like the sounds of it and I want to avoid it. Anyways. Just trust me, she's a cow. And not like weight wise (although ya, that too, well OK, not really, her body's actually not too bad) but more like just a miserable-sod-of-a-person way. Workplace politics are so complex. Makes me yearn for the days of Barney and Hungry Hipppo. And that, my friends, is a sad state of affairs indeed.
And one last thing before I sign off-- I must correct an error from yesterdays post. 'CPU' should actually be 'UPC' (Universal Price Code). I think, quite obviously, I could be dyslexic now on top of everything else. Or I wonder if thats just part and parcel of the acoustic brain tumor. The pamphlet from the Brain Tumor Network didn't list dyslexia as a symptom, but then again they only listed like four symptoms and there has to be more than that. And also, I noticed that sometimes when I sneeze I get kind of a tingly feeling at the base of my neck. So this has me quite concerned, naturally. I think I'd best just be going.
Today, my baby (weighing in at 1.66 kg, by the way-- the things you can find out on Canada Post.ca) arrived in Missisauga, ON. I am like totally freaking out right now. Woulda, coulda, shoulda. I keep thinking "I should have changed that part or this or that, I should have edited this or that or took that chapter out or made it longer or shorter or less wordy, etc. And then on top of that I'm thinking 'am I SURE that the pages are collated properly? That the the chapters are sequential? That the page breaks are where they should be? That I double checked all the spelling?? It's like when I was in University, after I turned in my exams I would just ruminate about it all the time, thinking 'oh I messed this up or that'. But then I would get my exam back and get like a ninety one on it. So hopefully this will be similar. I'm always my own worst critic.
Anyways, I think I'll just keep my day job where I'm a lot less vulnerable. Nurses are very much in demand, so I feel quite confident. But writing its totally different. Everyone thinks they can write the Great American Novel, where as the reality is that only a very exclusive few can. And what makes me think that I can be a part of that group??
A hope? A dream?
A delusion.
But I'll just think positive thoughts, like they say in The Secret. I've never actually read the book, but I got the jist of it second hand vis-a-vis a Saturday Night Live sketch. I can. I will. I might. But then again I might not. Probably not. Argh. I'll have to start over.
Anyways. Nothing else really new with me. Cucumber Breath is back from her holidays. I anticipated a somewhat strained convo with her, but guess what?? Now we're friends!! Can you believe that she has a cat named Zoey as well!! What are the chances of that?? They have to be like a million to one. And not only that, but her Zoey had a litter of kittens as well!! So we talked cat talk, you know whether they ate thier placentas and that, and I think we really bonded. See, that's all you have to do is just find something that you have in common. That's what all those people in the Middle East should do. Do they still have conflict there? I think so.
So now that Cucumber Breath and I are friends again, I have a new sworn enemy, Courier Cow. But I can't write too much on here about her, as I fear being sued for libel. I have no idea at all whatsoever what libel is, but I don't like the sounds of it and I want to avoid it. Anyways. Just trust me, she's a cow. And not like weight wise (although ya, that too, well OK, not really, her body's actually not too bad) but more like just a miserable-sod-of-a-person way. Workplace politics are so complex. Makes me yearn for the days of Barney and Hungry Hipppo. And that, my friends, is a sad state of affairs indeed.
And one last thing before I sign off-- I must correct an error from yesterdays post. 'CPU' should actually be 'UPC' (Universal Price Code). I think, quite obviously, I could be dyslexic now on top of everything else. Or I wonder if thats just part and parcel of the acoustic brain tumor. The pamphlet from the Brain Tumor Network didn't list dyslexia as a symptom, but then again they only listed like four symptoms and there has to be more than that. And also, I noticed that sometimes when I sneeze I get kind of a tingly feeling at the base of my neck. So this has me quite concerned, naturally. I think I'd best just be going.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Congragulations, It's A.... Manuscript!
What do I have to lose?
That way my thought when an agent requested my manuscript. I mean chances are slim to none that it will go any further from here, but it doesn't hurt to send it off anyways.
So naive I was. Tell that to me today when I've spent the last 48 hours scrolling through a 350 page manuscript to make sure that the formatting was correct and that there were no glaring spelling or grammatical errors. I beleive I got a form of motion sickness from it. I've slept poorly. I've ate poorly.
And then finally I got to the point where I could print it off, which you would think would be a simple matter of hitting print and being done, but no. Due to printer problems at home (I swear, nothing in my house works properly), I found myself yesterday at Wal Mart buying a new printer. And then I had to spend an hour to get it set up and installed. And then I had to buy the kids McDonalds for supper because I was too busy to cook. But finally, I was ready to go. But then at about page 200 I ran out of paper. So I was back at Wal Mart. Of course, I manage to somehow pick the one and only ream of paper out of the thousands they stock that doesn't have a CPU on it, how I managed that I have no idea, but it happens every time. And yet I haven't won a single free ticket on the lotto. Honestly. If it wasn't for bad luck I'd have no luck at all. So the price checking professional comes along, and I use the word professional loosely. He was an overweight adolescent with a blue Mokawk. I just tell by the way he ambled slowly over like he hadn't a care in the world that I was going to be waiting around for a while. And I was. After about ten minutes I finally went to go get another ream of paper, what happened to Blue Mohawk I can only speculate. Perhaps he saw some hair products on sale or something. I don't know. But finally, at nine pm and already bone tired, I left Wal Mart with my paper. I got back to my printing. And then at page 300 I ran out of ink. So back to Wal Mart it was. Finally I finished at about midnight. I crawled into bed and felt myself falling almost instantly to sleep. And then Alex woke up.
Oh God. I'm boring you. I guess this isn't that interesting to the average person. But the point is- I'm stupid. Like, OK, so your going to print a manuscript. Step one- make sure you enough paper and ink. Actually, make sure you have a printer. I would have printed it off and had it ready to go in the event of an agent asking for it, but I held to this stupid superstition that the only way anyone would ever want to see it was if I left it alone. Murphys law. Anyways, it is done and my manuscript is on its way to sunny Toronto. Does it get sunny there, I don't know.
Anyways, the whole process has been sort of like childbirth. This final push to spew forth this extension of me. Exhausting, exhilerating, but with an end product that was worth all the blood, sweat and tears. Actually, it's even better than childbirth. Childbirth, in the past, has left me with a case of raging hormones, leaky breasts and a seriously lacerated vajayjay. My vajayjay is gloriously intact right now, I am pleased to say. And even better, after I was finished printing everything off, I slept for seven uninterruped hours. I doubt if I had seven hours over a perios of three days after Alex was born.
So. Now I wait. I don't feel too positive about it right now. Last night when I was trying to polish my manuscript I got the distinct impression that I'm in over my head right now. Like, seriously, I'm just a small town girl with a book that objectively, may or may not be that funny.
At any rate, I am glad to have it out of my hands for the time being. And if nothing else, it has given me a little nudge that writing isn't completely futile. After a long, hard, year of rejection letters, I was beginning to think "what's the point". I spend all my spare time in the basement writing, and for what? To have a manilla envelope full of rejection letters? To have a blog that no one reads? Except for you mom and Lorrie. I know you're out there.
Anyways, I gotta go now. Work.
Will write later.
That way my thought when an agent requested my manuscript. I mean chances are slim to none that it will go any further from here, but it doesn't hurt to send it off anyways.
So naive I was. Tell that to me today when I've spent the last 48 hours scrolling through a 350 page manuscript to make sure that the formatting was correct and that there were no glaring spelling or grammatical errors. I beleive I got a form of motion sickness from it. I've slept poorly. I've ate poorly.
And then finally I got to the point where I could print it off, which you would think would be a simple matter of hitting print and being done, but no. Due to printer problems at home (I swear, nothing in my house works properly), I found myself yesterday at Wal Mart buying a new printer. And then I had to spend an hour to get it set up and installed. And then I had to buy the kids McDonalds for supper because I was too busy to cook. But finally, I was ready to go. But then at about page 200 I ran out of paper. So I was back at Wal Mart. Of course, I manage to somehow pick the one and only ream of paper out of the thousands they stock that doesn't have a CPU on it, how I managed that I have no idea, but it happens every time. And yet I haven't won a single free ticket on the lotto. Honestly. If it wasn't for bad luck I'd have no luck at all. So the price checking professional comes along, and I use the word professional loosely. He was an overweight adolescent with a blue Mokawk. I just tell by the way he ambled slowly over like he hadn't a care in the world that I was going to be waiting around for a while. And I was. After about ten minutes I finally went to go get another ream of paper, what happened to Blue Mohawk I can only speculate. Perhaps he saw some hair products on sale or something. I don't know. But finally, at nine pm and already bone tired, I left Wal Mart with my paper. I got back to my printing. And then at page 300 I ran out of ink. So back to Wal Mart it was. Finally I finished at about midnight. I crawled into bed and felt myself falling almost instantly to sleep. And then Alex woke up.
Oh God. I'm boring you. I guess this isn't that interesting to the average person. But the point is- I'm stupid. Like, OK, so your going to print a manuscript. Step one- make sure you enough paper and ink. Actually, make sure you have a printer. I would have printed it off and had it ready to go in the event of an agent asking for it, but I held to this stupid superstition that the only way anyone would ever want to see it was if I left it alone. Murphys law. Anyways, it is done and my manuscript is on its way to sunny Toronto. Does it get sunny there, I don't know.
Anyways, the whole process has been sort of like childbirth. This final push to spew forth this extension of me. Exhausting, exhilerating, but with an end product that was worth all the blood, sweat and tears. Actually, it's even better than childbirth. Childbirth, in the past, has left me with a case of raging hormones, leaky breasts and a seriously lacerated vajayjay. My vajayjay is gloriously intact right now, I am pleased to say. And even better, after I was finished printing everything off, I slept for seven uninterruped hours. I doubt if I had seven hours over a perios of three days after Alex was born.
So. Now I wait. I don't feel too positive about it right now. Last night when I was trying to polish my manuscript I got the distinct impression that I'm in over my head right now. Like, seriously, I'm just a small town girl with a book that objectively, may or may not be that funny.
At any rate, I am glad to have it out of my hands for the time being. And if nothing else, it has given me a little nudge that writing isn't completely futile. After a long, hard, year of rejection letters, I was beginning to think "what's the point". I spend all my spare time in the basement writing, and for what? To have a manilla envelope full of rejection letters? To have a blog that no one reads? Except for you mom and Lorrie. I know you're out there.
Anyways, I gotta go now. Work.
Will write later.
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