Not a zombie!

Guess who isn’t dead?

Oi, where in hell have I been?

Well, to put it shortly…

1. Tooth pain. Bad tooth pain. One of my molars is now nothing but an L-shaped shell that has blessedly been numbed entirely until I can get it pulled out.

2. Months of mental exhaustion from a combination of work and pain that tried to carve my brain cells out and eat them.

3. Months of playing World of Warcraft to distract myself from the pain, and then getting sucked in until it killed what few brain cells I have left.

4. My computer crashing constantly, which was 90% because of #3.

Basically I’ve been kind of slogging through life on auto-pilot. And I got entirely sick of it a couple of days ago. It feels like waking up from a dream where even in the dream I’m sleeping, but it’s good to feel alive again (and not to be in pain anymore, and not to be wasting any more time on a game that really can be like an addiction; I’ve 95% quit, and only log in for about 5 minutes a day).

I have been working on revisions in that time, though, and I’m almost done. I’m not going to start querying with the new version yet, though. I still have to proofread it with a fine-tooth comb, for one, and get some feedback from beta readers to see if it works or not. Also, I still have a couple of fulls out on the old version. It’s a one in a million shot that either agent will want to represent me (isn’t it always?), but should either of them express interest, I think it’d be rude to say, “Oh, you know that manuscript you just wasted a couple of days of your life reading? Well, I have a better one now. Sorry to waste your time!” If someone likes it as-is (well, obviously with revisions–there are always revisions once it gets into an agent’s hands, as they have the professional perspective to help shape it)…well, it’d be stupid not to trust their judgment.

Still, it’s a tricky situation. When I started querying, I thought I was ready. Someone asked about that in the Twitter #askagent chat last night, actually – about what to do when you thought you were ready to query, and then end up rewriting until it’s practically a different, better novel, and if it’s all right to requery. Most were pretty positively responsive, as long as you wait a decent length of time to requery. I don’t know. I don’t even know if I’m going to query with the new version. Depending on the response I get from the agents with fulls, I’ll make a decision on where to go from here.

I miss writing. I’ve been doing a few little drabbles the past few days; nothing really important, but just warming up unused muscles.

As if the entire ramble wasn’t random enough, let’s close off with a completely different topic:

I really wish people would stop making such a huge fuss about President Obama bowing to the emperor of Japan. When in Rome, people. When in Rome. It’s called politeness and mutual respect, and if we’re going to expect everyone to conform to our customs when on our soil, then we can have the courtesy to respect their customs when on their soil. It’s not a sign of weakness or deference, and the kind of close-minded centrism rising around that sentiment is why half the world hates us.

That’s all. So. How’re you? (…if there’s anyone even left in this ghost town…)

Posted by on Nov 21, 2009 in Agents & Querying, Life in General, Writing Blather | 10 comments

This probably needs a title.

It’s amazing and sad that major news sources are taking this long to say anything about the June 2nd death of fantasy author David Eddings.

I am having a terrible time focusing on work this morning. Part of that is because I’m trying to remember a book that I wanted; it was a reference book of some sort, yet I can’t seem to even remember what subject it was about. It’s been on my mind for three days – yet now that I’m putting together a book order, it’s completely slipped my mind and it’s driving me buggy.

I wonder if it’s possible to be senile at 30.

I’m also getting pulled off on tangents by snippets of Ken’s story (book two, which I’m back to calling Ken’s story as I’m not happy with the title Earth’s Tempest – sounds like a romance novel). I’ve been posting bitlets of dialogue to LJ now and then, but keep wanting to write more. I just…completely suck at having a work ethic right now, unless it involves actual deadline work that I get paid for. I really need to get out of that trap; that’s how many authors end up sinking themselves, by focusing only on the 9-5 and then saying “Oh, that story…I’ll work on it again tomorrow.” And of course tomorrow never comes.

Last distraction? Feeling gypped that I paid $4.99 to watch City of Ember On Demand. That…that was godawful. Even worse was that I kept thinking “Oh hey, that boy looks like Roman – oh. Oh, no, he doesn’t. Dear god, no, he really doesn’t. Boy? Boy, please close your mouth. Please. No one likes a mouth breather.”

It randomly struck me, as I was trying to figure out how to fit seven job descriptions of average length onto two bloody effin’ pages, that I’m very bad at knowing the difference between middle grade fiction and young adult fiction. I blame this on my own personal reading experiences growing up; I devoured books voraciously and never paid attention to their reading level, so they all blended together in my mind (especially since in my hometown library, there was basically an adult section, a children’s section, and a YA section that lumped YA and MG together). The age of the protagonist(s) is no longer an indicator, as you can have MG books with 18-year-old protagonists or YA books with 12-year-old protagonists. It’s mainly a matter of length, content, and maturity of storyline, I guess…but it’s still a blurred line that I think I often walk incorrectly.

Need to send out a few more queries today; I’ve been slacking, but to me, sending out just one query is a lot of work. I never understand people who can send out fifteen to fifty queries a day. It takes time to research an agent, custom-prepare your sample materials according to their guidelines, adjust your query letter to fit their style and requirements, and then obsessively triple-check everything to ensure you’ve added the right things and didn’t make any mistakes. If it takes me less than an hour to get a query packet together, I feel like I’ve half-assed the job.

Also need to finish revising the SB synopsis. Still waiting on initial “Yes, I’d like to see more / No thanks, not right for us” responses from several queries, as well as waiting for a response from the agent with the full.

The Magazine of Fantasy and Sci-Fi is currently accepting submissions. I may try my hand at short stories again. My inability to write them is an obstacle I really need to overcome.

Have almost completely lost interest in World of Warcraft, for a variety of reasons. Laptop keeps overheating and crashing while playing; chill mat doesn’t help much (I suspect there may be an abundance of cat hair in the internal fan, contributing to the crashes). Have no desire to level another class to 80; I have two 80s, and that’s more than enough. RP in-game has gotten entirely tedious, with OOC drama that I have no desire to deal with; since RP was the main reason (beyond a few dailies) that I logged on regularly and I’ve now found entirely spectacular non-WoW RP with a friend, I have little reason to pop into the game anymore.

Oh, btw…the majority of you have already heard, but yes, Hikaru and I are engaged. No date set yet. Happy birthday, love. He’s 24 today.

Oh, yeah. One other thing.

I passed my CPRW exam. I am now a Certified Professional Resume Writer.

That’s all.

Posted by on Jun 4, 2009 in Agents & Querying, Books!, Life in General, Writing Blather | 2 comments