Drawing from the Well
Queries: 49 (+1)
Rejections: 34 (+1)
First Eighth
Chapter 2 of 89
Scene 5 of 498
Word Count: 1590 (+324)
I made a little progress here but the last several days have seen me struggling with some discouragement so I haven’t done anything for about 3 days now. The itch is returning, though, so I feel like I’ll dive back into my prosaic recycling effort today or tomorrow. Oh, and the querying effort is back on.
Filling the Well
Tunnel of Bones: 100%! (Book 30 for #ProjectBookworm2019)
The Bible: 76%
Blue Lily, Lily Blue: 24%
The Handmaid’s Tale: 11%
I’ve fallen down on my Bible reading lately and need to jump back into it. I did finish my thirtieth book this year, though, so that’s exciting. I’m approaching the most books I’ve EVER read in a year so that has me stoked. If I can finish 35 books this year, I’ll beat my record. Let’s see how I do.
Oh, and I read a few pages in the Hamilton biography, but that book is a slog and will likely take me a decade to finish so I’m not even tracking it here. When I get close to the end or make significant progress, I’ll mention it above.
Polishing the Well
This was kind of my day yesterday afternoon minus the wagon. I cleared out almost an entire area of our back yard that I’ve been neglecting for a long time. It’s in much better shape now, but all that dander and pollen got in my eyes and now I feel like they’re shrink-wrapped. It sucks, but I feel pride in the work I did.
Well Chat
Best of Intentions
I did #PitMad. I spent days preparing my tweets going over and over them with my wife. I wrote three, threw a couple out, rewrote, tweaked, honed, and did the best I could to prepare. I was really proud of my three tweets.
September 5th came and I walked into a bonkers day. I ran late getting both kids to school (though they both made it on time) and then had to go straight to the dentist for a cleaning. All this before 9am. So by the time I got home, I was already running late for #PitMad. I was also feeling like I was running late for work. So I got home and dove into work.
Where I stayed for hours. I was so busy in the morning I frankly forgot to tweet. It wasn’t until after 2:30pm when I sent my first tweet. Then I got busy again. 4pm came and went before I tweeted again. And then I ran out after work to run some errands. I didn’t even send my third tweet until after #PitMad technically closed.
Frankly, I was crushed.
There were plenty of well wishes on Twitter to all the authors participating in #PitMad. I got two retweets and I even got one like, though it was from a publishing service of sorts and not an agent (I’m still not sure how to feel about that). Despite that, I was monumentally disappointed. Yes, I was disappointed that I didn’t get a like from an agent, sure, but I was prepared for that. What I was most disappointed by was my failure to act.
I’ll have a wider discussion tomorrow about effort vs. results, but I disappointed myself here by my effort. I spent so much time in preparation and was so proud of the tweets I was planning to send and then FAILED to send them (clearly, still self-flagellating about this).
So how did I get past this (eventually)? Well, I’m still getting past some of being upset by the failure in my effort, but I did a couple things to pull me most of the way out of the pit. First, I let the self-anger and self-pity wash over me. Trying to hold back the entire flood was always an exercise in futility. Eventually it was going to come through so letting it arrive sooner rather than later just gets that arduous process behind me. Then, I accepted that I didn’t do my best, but I did what I did and I can’t focus on what happens from there. That led me to the final realization: I can only do something about the things I can do something about. That sounds self-referential and obvious, but it’s a hard truth to accept sometimes. So, I have gone back to querying, back to writing Book Two, and started looking ahead to Pitch Wars coming soon.
So, let the wave come, let it pass, and then look forward to the next wave. Ride the wave, people.
May the tide carry you to safer shores.
BSG