The trouble with spending many hours on the phone coordinating bureaucratic threads that defy coordination is that it leaves you with a lot of down time as you're waiting to speak to a live person or trying to figure out what the next step should be.
With my computer before me, I fill the hours reading about pilots using drugs in flight, Scotland's move to a cataclysmic independence, about travelers hiding their online information and people ignoring their symptoms of Diabetes 2.
How can you stay normal if you spend a day glued to such reports?
I don't have many photos for you. I did rise early to let the cheepers out...
...and this is really the only time that I kept my camera with me.
Well, breakfast, too, of course.
After, I watched the sun move from point A to point B and I stayed glued to my screen, trying to work through issues (credit card, banking, bla bla bla) that should have taken no time at all.
On the upside, I did receive my first agent rejection letter. That's great! It means that I am not really sending queries to a vacuum. There are people who actually read, or at least respond to new author letters! I'm encouraged!
In the evening Ed and I played a round of tennis. Like breakfast (though less certain), our game is a bookmark. Our day ends with it. A meal will still be cooked, cheepers will be secured, but after the game, everything is a wind down.
I read that there will be storms tonight. Violent and strong. Summer never ends without a big statement.
With my computer before me, I fill the hours reading about pilots using drugs in flight, Scotland's move to a cataclysmic independence, about travelers hiding their online information and people ignoring their symptoms of Diabetes 2.
How can you stay normal if you spend a day glued to such reports?
I don't have many photos for you. I did rise early to let the cheepers out...
...and this is really the only time that I kept my camera with me.
Well, breakfast, too, of course.
After, I watched the sun move from point A to point B and I stayed glued to my screen, trying to work through issues (credit card, banking, bla bla bla) that should have taken no time at all.
On the upside, I did receive my first agent rejection letter. That's great! It means that I am not really sending queries to a vacuum. There are people who actually read, or at least respond to new author letters! I'm encouraged!
In the evening Ed and I played a round of tennis. Like breakfast (though less certain), our game is a bookmark. Our day ends with it. A meal will still be cooked, cheepers will be secured, but after the game, everything is a wind down.
I read that there will be storms tonight. Violent and strong. Summer never ends without a big statement.
on the upside, a rejection letter! you are a delight, finding an upside to a rejection letter. the phone nonsense is why I continually delay taking care of business that needs to be done. When I actually get a real person and get something done quickly, I can hardly believe my good fortune. Seems like that should be the norm, no?
ReplyDeleteI think the world has surely become more complicated. In my days, it used to be, for example, easy to quickly open an account. These days? Ha! Try it! And managing it? Forget it! More rules than for kindergartners in school. Somehow banks have morphed into entities I don't really get anymore.
DeleteIn Cabaret, after Sally Bowles finally seduces Brian, and he's astounded by how great they were together, he tells her he had tried sex with three other girls and it just didn't go very well.
ReplyDeleteSally (the inimitable Liza Minelli) says "Darling, obviously those were the WRONG THREE GIRLS!"
So Nina, that agent is just the Wrong Agent. :)
My Sally Bowles line is a different one: it's when she reads the telegram from her father. Something like -- hope you are fine, love. Because he didn't want to spend the extra dime to sign "dad."
DeleteNina:
ReplyDeleteI've had stacks of rejection letters - not that I'm suggesting you will too. :)) Like you, I felt oddly satisfied rather than disappointed - that AT LEAST someone had read my query and 5 chapters. Years and years ago I had the silly nerve to send a piece to The New Yorker. Good God. I still have the rejection slip somewhere in boxes of minutia. I kept it because it was a note card with a personal message... that my essay/story wasn't what they were looking for, but to keep on writing because I was good. I thought that was pretty gosh darn cool. I burned out. Told my muse to get lost for a while.
Keep the good spirits. You've written a book! That's a big WOW! You've sent out letters - another big WOW! I had a friend in Laguna Beach who became insanely depressed and would cry hysterically and ignite the letters... and all kinds of unnecessary drama.
Just keep on smiling!
A friend once wrote something that did get accepted in the New Yorker. Oddly he never wrote anything again, possibly fearing that he could never top that! :)
DeleteAll good... what did that agent know? The right agent will read it and say yes! I can see it...
ReplyDeleteA published author told me recently that agents only read the first sentence of random query letters. And still, when you go to the bookstore or library, you see so many indifferent or even bad books out there! So many! I can never figure out how that can be, but there you have it.
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