Obsessions and Submissions

I'll get better at this blogging thing. Part of it is I usually want to make my writing perfect, to be witty, erudite, etc., etc. And that isn't exactly the nature of blogging. Not that people don't come up with brilliant and wonderful things, but most times it is the day to day, the little thoughts, and the unexceptional.

So here I am, endevoring to be unexceptional. So here are the updates:

Between May 13 and 15 I sent queries out to 21 agents. I got three requests for partials, all of whom rejected bringing the total to 15 rejections and 6 no responses. A number of the rejections were actually positive (if there is such a thing) and praised my story and my writing. So I consider that to be a kind of success. I'm wondering if the real difficulty is that nothing in my query mentions that I'm intending to be a little upscale. If you read my query you might be expecting it to start hard and fast and be tons of adventure. There is adventure and shootings and explosions. But the climax of the novel isn't when the bad guys are caught. It's more character driven. So if you are expecting high octane, you'll think it starts a little slowly. But I'm holding out hope. Some word nerd is going to look at this and connect immediately. It's out there.

In the meantime I've been working on another edit because did I mention the perfectionist in me? But I finally let go and am sending it to a few friends.

In the meantime, I've been to Iowa for a bit to be at my father-in-law's retirement party. And the husband and I reconnected to World of Warcraft. This is dangerous business.

We used to play Dark Age of Camelot together and then City of Heroes. We'd been on WoW but then gave up. I think we'd just burnt out after so many games. But we're back now and it's been full on obsession. Somewhere between helping with the massive church rummage sale and the trip to Iowa I lost my writing habit and it became harder and harder to get back into it, especially as the computer was enticing me with slaying beasties as my gnome warrior.

Yep, it's an obsession. And I went with it. Rather than trying to force myself and getting upset, I went with it. Obsessions can lead you into some interesting waters and as much as I'm a big believer in habit and putting my butt to the chair, I also know there is no point in forcing myself when all I'll do is drive myself crazy. So every morning I would make my tea as usual. I'd sit down with my journal and write some drivel. Maybe mess a little bit with the manuscript. And after a little time I'd go feed the obsession. It's feeding the fever and letting it burn itself out. It did. Not that I'm off WoW by any means. But it's taken its rightful place now as a hobby to be done after writing. And that is good.