Inspiration comes from strange places.
The Dead Rise was rejected again this afternoon. By the first person I queried with my rewrite, six months ago.
The thing is, I didn't expect a reply. Way back in the day, when I first queried the agent, I got a reply twelve hours later. She said she liked the idea of the book, but it was too short. So I rewrote it, pureed it and remolded it and made it something new. And then I queried her again shortly thereafter, and never heard back.
All this time, I've figured - well, it slipped through the cracks, but there's this ant-sized chance that one day, she'll find it in her inbox. And then...
And even though I decided a while back that the book was going nowhere, that it was not only unmarketable, it was pretty... green, to put it politely... it was still a disappointment.
But it made me realize that yes, I need to start everything up again. I need to start writing. Revising. Querying. Rebecca is going to start reading the latest revision of The Cherubim and making notes for me, and when we're back from our vacation next weekend, I'm going to go over it one last time with a fine-toothed comb and get it out.
And when that's done, I want to finish Mrs. Shadow. I haven't looked at it since early July. Feels like a lot longer. It needs a total rewrite. Thing is, I can't wait to start the next book after that. I've been working on it in my mind ever since I finished the first draft of Mrs. Shadow, and I'm *really* excited about it.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Friday, August 28, 2009
Post fifty!
I love my job.
That being said, I got an email today from our parent company urging me to exercise my voice in the ongoing healthcare debate. I also got a letter containing four preprinted postcards with my representatives' names and addresses and MY name and address preprinted. There's a cute note asking me to slap on postage and send them off. Each postcard says I support healthcare reform, but NOT anything that might compete with private insurers.
>:-(
That being said, I got an email today from our parent company urging me to exercise my voice in the ongoing healthcare debate. I also got a letter containing four preprinted postcards with my representatives' names and addresses and MY name and address preprinted. There's a cute note asking me to slap on postage and send them off. Each postcard says I support healthcare reform, but NOT anything that might compete with private insurers.
>:-(
Thursday, August 13, 2009
His Blog has Four Posts; All Apologies
I read something the other day about when people are mentally engaged with work, they don't seek out alternative forms of brain-exercise after hours. At least, I think I did; it was a fast skim in-between projects.
The good news is this: I've been at my job a month and a half, I've been doing real work for two weeks, and I love it. It's never repetitious and rarely tedious. Every day, I'm assigned anywhere between two to five ideas for possible insurance screw-ups. It's my job to figure out how to take that idea and to find as many refunds as possible. I pass them along to the rest of the team and they see what they can make off of it. In return, I get a very tiny cut of whatever refunds are found.
I think I've explained all that before, but I don't think I can get across how much my mind has latched onto it. This is the first time I've worked somewhere and I'm genuinely interested in what I do. I like it. I think I've said that enough.
But I haven't worked on any writing projects in the last few weeks. I finished off The Cherubim, polished up a query letter, and sent it off to the Query Shark for analysis. That was about a month ago. I figure soon enough, I'll give the whole project another once-over and then start querying it. I think it's good; I think that it might go somewhere. But I'm not as invested as I used to be. My mind is elsewhere of late.
Which doesn't make me happy. I hope that I snap back into it soon; if not, I'll have to set a date and get started then. I can't wait to get back to Mrs. Shadow; I had a few ideas for the second draft, and I think that when everything's said and done, it might be the first thing I've written that has something to say.
But there's not any rush. We moved three weeks ago to a quiet suburb of Nashville; there's a farmer's market selling food from dozens of farms, and the weather's just lovely, and I wake up in the morning now looking forward to getting to my desk, and the day flies by. And in the afternoon, I can't wait to come home and spend the evening with my best friend. Everything feels wonderful, and I want to enjoy it as long as possible. I think this is the first time in my adult life I haven't felt any stress or pressures. I know how lucky I am, and I know it won't last forever.
The good news is this: I've been at my job a month and a half, I've been doing real work for two weeks, and I love it. It's never repetitious and rarely tedious. Every day, I'm assigned anywhere between two to five ideas for possible insurance screw-ups. It's my job to figure out how to take that idea and to find as many refunds as possible. I pass them along to the rest of the team and they see what they can make off of it. In return, I get a very tiny cut of whatever refunds are found.
I think I've explained all that before, but I don't think I can get across how much my mind has latched onto it. This is the first time I've worked somewhere and I'm genuinely interested in what I do. I like it. I think I've said that enough.
But I haven't worked on any writing projects in the last few weeks. I finished off The Cherubim, polished up a query letter, and sent it off to the Query Shark for analysis. That was about a month ago. I figure soon enough, I'll give the whole project another once-over and then start querying it. I think it's good; I think that it might go somewhere. But I'm not as invested as I used to be. My mind is elsewhere of late.
Which doesn't make me happy. I hope that I snap back into it soon; if not, I'll have to set a date and get started then. I can't wait to get back to Mrs. Shadow; I had a few ideas for the second draft, and I think that when everything's said and done, it might be the first thing I've written that has something to say.
But there's not any rush. We moved three weeks ago to a quiet suburb of Nashville; there's a farmer's market selling food from dozens of farms, and the weather's just lovely, and I wake up in the morning now looking forward to getting to my desk, and the day flies by. And in the afternoon, I can't wait to come home and spend the evening with my best friend. Everything feels wonderful, and I want to enjoy it as long as possible. I think this is the first time in my adult life I haven't felt any stress or pressures. I know how lucky I am, and I know it won't last forever.
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