I offer you this sunny photo of one of my favorite dogwalking areas as proof that I’m not about to slit my wrists or quit writing or anything so dire.

Yes, Nice Agent rejected my latest manuscript one week ago today. At the time I felt bummed and angry. Bummed because apparently he’s not the agent for me, and, thus, I must start the agent-hunting process all over again. Is there such a thing as trying-to-get-published fatigue? I suppose that’s me.

You might ask yourself why Nice Agent can’t still be my agent. So he didn’t fall in love with this manuscript, so what? This is where the angry part comes in. I couldn’t believe the rejection letter he sent me! I am/was a client, after all, and what did he send me but a generic rejection letter! As if my manuscript had come off the slush pile or something! I was steamed about this, to be sure. (Three exclamation points in one paragraph; that’s a record for me — ! — and make that four.)

I don’t take rejection letters personally anymore, yet, last week I was offended. (And I don’t offend easily.) I mean, hello? Do not send me a boilerplate rejection letter with a few pat compliments and then the usual spiel about the competitive marketplace and how you need to be head over heels for a project to be its best advocate and etcetera. As a so-called client, I deserved more than that.

And my God, I’m not an idiot. I know a blow off when I read one. Yes, blow off, because the one thing that he could have written to indicate his continued interest in my writing would have been something like: I’m interested in reading further works; please consider me…etcetera.

But no. So, me thinks Nice Agent is Erstwhile Agent #2.

However, I didn’t let him get away with such a response, not entirely. I replied in a polite yet straightfoward manner, thanking him, pointing out his generic letter, and asking as a kinda-client for more details. I asked him to provide his overall impression of my writing and his opinion about what I need to work on to improve my stories (which is to say, make them more salable).

All this is subjective, I know, but he responded (nicely) with the answer I thought I’d hear: plot/pacing. My stories are too leisurely for his taste.

I’m going to look for a new agent for the two finished manuscripts, don’t get me wrong — they ARE worthwhile and entertaining stories with plots – but I’m also going to ponder pacing. I doubt I’ll ever be a wham-bam-thank-you-’mam kind of writer, but I probably do have more to learn…sigh…

In every deliberation, we must consider the impact on the seventh generation…even if it requires having skin as thick as the bark of a pine.            Great Law of the Iroquois

This morning a dear friend called me. She was concerned because yesterday I’d e-mailed her in angry, ventful fashion. I’m fine today — well, not fine, but okay, rallying, that kind of thing — but yesterday I was pissed off and bummed out. Teetering between the two emotions but forced to set the emotions aside because of  j.o.b. deadlines.

This post isn’t actually about the rejection I received. I’ll get to that later this week. Promise!

This post is about how funny life is sometimes.

The reason I vented in that particular moment was because my friend had sent me an e-mail first. I might not have vented at all, otherwise. In her e-mail she’d written,

Nice, eh?

xoxo

That’s it. I had no clue what she was referring to, except I noticed the Iroquois quote at the bottom of the message, and having never noticed this quote before, or maybe having noticed but forgotten it so that it was new all over again, I thought she was making a point about the bark of a pine and being a writer.

Seemed logical to me, given my mood.  And apt, the thick-skinned thing, of which I need to grow me some, and what with the perfect timing of the message, reading it just then…You can see why I replied back in a verbal purge.

Okay, that was that. I went back to work. Then, this morning my dear friend called partially to check on me, partially to verify: Hadn’t I received a royalty check for my Elizabeth George anthology story? (She also wrote a story for the anthology.)

OH!!!

I was so preoccupied, I forgot to fetch the mail! And indeed, the check awaited me. Yesterday, receiving the check might have balanced out my mood. Receiving the check today, I laughed.

A few lessons from Buddha Dog might have helped.

I didn’t mean to ignore my blog for a month. It just kind of happened in the midst of chaos. Hopefully, I’m back — though the work deadlines are about to explode again.

Want to check in, and I want to let everyone who’s commented, emailed, and called to know that I appreciate the supportive sentiments. I hope to return to the blogger community again, reading others’ blogs, commenting, enjoying the virtual view. Of course, I hope to carve out more time for fiction, too. I miss it, and I’m a better, more likeable person when I’m doing my creative thing. (Boy am I!)

Meanwhile, what’s happening within Fiction Land? Behind the chaotic scenes I have been plugging away — or maybe I should say “glugging” away because it’s been a pitifully clogged and drippy process — on the manuscript revision. Remember my tale of Erstwhile Agent, and then Nice Agent who inherited me when Erstwhile Agent flew the coop never to be seen or heard from again? I never followed up on that tale because I sank into a funk, quickly followed up with high anxiety. It’s been a rough six or seven months.

In any case, way back when, I sent Nice Agent the manuscript that Erstwhile Agent had been peddling with no success. I was hoping N.A. would continue peddling, but, alas, the project had garnered enough rejections that N.A. didn’t think it worth the effort. However, N.A. wrote me this:

It’s easy to see why (Erstwhile Agent) fell for the manuscript. You have a wonderful voice and charm to spare.

I’m impressed by your writing and would love to read your next manuscript.

Based on KILMOON SEASON, I really want to see what else you have up your sleeve…

Well, yesterday I sent the next manuscript to N.A.! Yes, glugging along, I finally finished the revision. And HALLELUJAH for that! N.A. replied back that he’s looking forward to “jumping in” and will have time in the next few weeks to get started.

So, everyone, send good vibes to my baby out there in the world!

And how’s everyone? I hope you’re doing fine.

I murdered my thesaurus.

I just sent a message to a few friends. What I want, of course, is for them to reply that I’m not really insane. That this kind of thing is normal and happens to the best of us. I won’t believe them.

Thought I’d share it with you too, because, hey, this is my life as a writer at the moment. The other side of the coin when the writing’s not going well, when indeed you’re wondering: What’s the point of my life?

What I wrote:

I think I’m going insane. Yesterday, I accidentally overwrote all my work on a course module, then started it again, then watched myself (in a fog of something) click NO to saving the changes, and lost it again. I had a complete and total meltdown – the kind in which you pace and cry and scream and want to kill something and you even look at the dog for a millesecond before you throw your beloved thesaurus (not the pocket-sized kind) across the room hard enough to break it in half down the spine. I think in psychiatry they call this “devolving.”

And then today, I couldn’t get stuff on the laptop to work right (or maybe myself to work right) while in a coffeehouse for my supposed lunch hour, and I turned into one of those crazies you sometimes see muttering to themselves and swearing under their breaths and making loony-tune faces.

AND THEN: I somehow forgot that I was on a teleconference call, UNmuted, and proceeded to throw a fit at my computer complete with the f-bomb, and I was pretty darned audible. And it was a childish fit – completely mortifying and I can’t stop obsessing about my mortification. My cheeks are still burning up two hours later.

Something’s seriously wrong with me these days.

—

So maybe you’re thinking that my subconsious is telling me something. As if I didn’t already know that I’m veering off my best path! Yesterday as I was coming off my meltdown I ruminated as follows: I need money, and I’m only technical-writing for the money. Well then, if I’m going to work for the money, why don’t I attempt to write a romance or a paranormal or a suspense novel? I mean, if I’m working for money wouldn’t writing any type of fiction be better than what I’m currently doing?

Last night, I had to laugh (maybe there’s hope for me yet), however. I’m reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, and I happened to read this passage: …and I’ll spend my declining years in a grimy bed-sit, with my teeth falling out one by one. Oh, I can see it all now: No one will buy my books, and I’ll ply Sidney (read: editor/agent) with tattered, illegible manuscripts, which he’ll pretend to publish out of pity. Doddering and muttering, I’ll wander the streets carrying my pathetic turnips in a string bag (picture my beloved thesaurus), with newspaper tucked into my shoes…Oh God. This way lies insanity.

That’s exactly how I felt, how I have been feeling.

P.S. Later: Just discovered the teleconference session was recorded, and my fit of pique — to put it quaintly — is out there for all the muckety-mucks to hear — again.

Check out Luna begging for a little sandwich

Today — at noon, no less — I made the break. I wrenched myself away from my deadlines, put on semi-decent clothes plus a groovy necklace (which is really dressing up) and sped away from my home-office. With windows rolled down, I let the spring breeze mess up my already disheveled curls, which reminded me that I’m about two months overdue for a haircut.

But, no matter, because at least my hair was clean for a change, and the sun was out. Luna the Dog stared up at me, expecting and about to receive a desultory walk in the park, in which I chatted with other dogwalkers while she tried to avoid all dog-contact. She’s like that.

Then, off to a cafe with its outdoor seating back in place after a long winter. Happy day! Brie panini (a splurge, admittedly), latte, and laptop. I munched the sandwich as I munged words, achieving my hour’s worth of fiction for the day. Still not the best, still itchy that I can’t spend all day…But a step in the right direction, right?

Truth is, I could have worked another little while on the novel, but I decided to finish up my lunch hour with a little spring-cleaning. My home is a wreck, but now my balcony is habitable.

Alas, I must return to the training manual I’m editing, which means that the dog and the cat get to enjoy the balcony. Ah well, that was a mighty fine three-hour lunch hour!

Luna amidst the new geraniums and daisies

Trio on the new "anti-gravity" deck chair

Fellow wool-gatherers

On advice from my friend Elizabeth, and as mentioned in my last post, I tried to take lunch hours this week. There’s a reason why they’re built into the 9-to-5 work day, after all. It makes sense to give ourselves a break for refueling on all levels: food for the body, relaxation for the brain, maybe some socializing for the soul.

From Tuesday on, I managed to get out of the house for my lunch hour around 5:00 p.m. Not exactly optimal, but still, I counted this as a step in the right direction. Elizabeth and I had been talking about how I can get at least one measly hour’s worth of fiction in each day during the week. Hence, a lunch hour.

The key is to actually leave my home and my WiFi. And, in fact, it did work even though my lunch hours occured so late in the day. I managed a few hours worth of fiction while sipping a nonfat, decaf latte in my favorite coffeehouse. And this helped my mood, yet…

Why did I still feel like crying sometimes? I don’t know what’s going to become of me. Honestly. I feel cornered by all the decisions I’ve made in my life that have landed me here: Knowing which work will truly make me happy, not knowing how I’m supposed to save for retirement and all that practical stuff…

So, though I’ve halted the descent down the depression slide, it’s still there, lurking. I still wonder how people with real lives — real career, kids, tons of responsibilities — get their novels written. Don’t they need tons of downtime to let the brain juices burble and sift? Maybe not. But I guess I do.

Weekend writing spot: Laptop, dog, beans and rice, what could be better?

I think, but I’m not sure, that I started off this week a million times more sane than last week. Don’t get me wrong, at various points over the weekend stress nipped at me, reminding me of its existence while I went about my business trying to have a weekend away from the work.

That was my main goal for weekend — SAY “NO” TO WORK — because I needed, wanted, had to work on short story edits. This story will be published in an anthology, and I’ve been sitting on the editor’s notes for weeks, closer to two months. I’ve longed for the brainspace to sit down with the story and clean it up. But until this past weekend, I was out of my mind.

This weekend I was only a little out of my mind. In fact, I’d say SAYING “NO” TO WORK and forcing myself to ignore the stressed heart-thumps and chest pressures did me a world of good. I feel better for having time with my fiction.

(Unfortunately, I did work over the weekend, but just a little on Saturday morning and last night. Mostly, I had my weekend.)

In fact, the anthology’s editor called me Saturday morning. I rushed to assure her that the short story was open on the monitor. Apparently, she wasn’t concerned about the edits though. She was concerned that given my fragile state of late, I’d take this blog post the wrong way.

I had to laugh when I read the post, and I’m looking forward to hearing her rude-writer tales. You’ll also see my comment. Rest assured, I’m not one of the unprofessional writers she was talking about. Why? Because I communicated with her along the way — and I know how to format a bloody manuscript! (Aspiring writers: heed her post.)

She’s smart. She suggested that I might feel better if I left my apartment for a real lunch hour. That seems obvious (so why hadn’t I thought of it?). I didn’t try this today; instead, I clowned around outside with plants, a neighbor, and my dog. That counts for a lunch hour though.

And it helped!

You know what else helped? Instead of stumbling straight from bed to drowning in work-muck without coffee (much less breakfast) until hours later, I took thirty minutes to shower, say a quality “hello” to the animals, fix coffee, dress in real clothes, and step out onto the deck for a few quality inhalations.

I can’t remember the last time I showered in the morning. Usually, I get it in whenever, which is often right before bed. Amazing what a difference that makes…sigh…

I’m sitting here on Easter Sunday, staring at a section of manual entitled “Target Settings.” I’m editing this section (fiction feels far away, needless to say), and I’m missing an annual Easter brunch with some of my best friends in the world, a couple of whom I went to college with and who know me well enough to know that I’m not there because things ain’t exactly right with me at the moment…

This is not to say that I’m forgoing all social activities this weekend. Yesterday, after five hours of work that didn’t lead to any forward progress with my many overly project-managed deadlines, I went to a friend’s house to dye eggs, drink, and eat. We consumed lilac-colored martinis made with Parfait Amour liquor. Yummy. I drank one too many.

That was good. I needed it. Not feeling tip-top right now, but I just now decided that I AM going to this same friend’s Easter dinner. I’m not going to miss both of my Easter Sunday engagements because of the work — no, no, no.

The thought of a traditional ham dinner cheers me up (as food usually does), and just now, staring at words like “configure” and “properties” and “redirection,” I got to thinking about cheering myself up in general.

Yesterday I bought an “anti-gravity” (i.e. reclines) chair for the deck so that I can sit comfortably out there with my laptop (or not) when the weather warms. I’m looking forward to this. I’m going to pot flowers too.

But right now, what? Blogging seems to be helping, actually. I’m glad to be here, writing this, blowing off the work for 30 minutes.

And what else? My camera. I remembered it a few days ago. Snapping pictures soothes me. Any mundane image will do. Here are a few other things that cheered me up this week:

 

Easter treats to share with friends

Wildflower fields

New ring for spring

I think I’m getting depressed. I can tell because in any spare time I carve out from the day-job, all I want to do is sleep and read. I want to slide away from reality, and in feeling this way, my fiction dream feels like it’s sliding away too. And so goes the depressive cycle.

It’s funny, people who don’t get depressed probably don’t get what I’m talking about. Not truly. Their reaction might be, Just get on with it, Lisa; don’t read and sleep — write fiction! — in those carved-out hours. In my normal head, I do just this. But when depression weighs me down…Let’s just say there’s a whole ‘nother set of rules required to get through the days. It’s hard to explain the weightedness; the lurking sense that nothing’s worth it, that it’s all meaningless anyhow; the enervation (even when thinking about fiction); the sense that even the most mundane of tasks — like tidying the kitchen – are monumental.

I have to get the day-job stuff done because I need the money. It’s taking all I have. At the moment, the only thing I’m managing well is getting the dog out for walks.

I often try to analyze my way out of depression. Try to figure it out. Try to come up with alternate routines to jolt myself back into a good fictional brainspace. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Right now, it’s not working. On Monday’s post, I seemed to be equalizing, but that was apparently a commercial break from the main programming going on inside my head.

There’s the problem of partitioning, too. I need time and space away from stress to function well. At the moment, I can’t separate myself from the day-job chaos that’s swirling around me. For example, every time I check my email there are 15 new messages — it’s taking over my life. I haven’t been in this position in years — it’s wearing me out, sapping my creativity.

When I open the manuscript, nothing happens. I’m not the type to wait for inspiration. I get down to work and do it. But, like I said above, that’s when I’m in my normal head. Depressive head doesn’t function the same; I look at my prose and it reads like a bunch of blah-di-blah. I have no feeling for my own words. There’s no “just doing it.”

People who get depressed understand what I mean by “normal head” and “depressive head.” To put it in fictional terms: They’re totally different interior landscapes.

The day-job stuff is the trigger, for sure. Before the writing grant, I worked part-time, from home — just like I’m doing now. But it was different, more easygoing. I easily partitioned it away from the rest of my life. (Sidenote: This is a new kind of part-time called “full-time.”)

I’m hoping that I’ll get used to this day-job; and once I do, the stress will lift; and when it does, I’ll be able to partition; and when this happens, I’ll return to fictional brainspace; and when I do, my depressive state will lift. But seems far away from now, in a galaxy far far away from me.

All I know is that right now, sitting here at 1:30 p.m. with a grumbling stomach and a headache because I haven’t eaten since last night, I feel like my fiction dreams are seeping away, that I was so close…I’m going to take a nap now…

My March Madness c’est fini, kaput, done for, finished, outta-here, and this morning I wished on a dandelion: Please, no more months like that. I haven’t thrown so many tantrums and broken into so many tears since I was a teenager. I’m on a high learning curve — call it trial by fire — with this new day-job gig I’ve got going. It’s completely insane, in fact. At one point, I left a screaming vent message on a friend’s voicemail, and she laughed so hard she had to share it with her workmates. (I don’t vent often; I’m the quiet sort.)

It’s not that I’m not still working like crazy, but I decided to switch off my tendency to take ownership. This is NOT my project; I’m just a pion writer, and if others don’t know what they’re doing, it’s not up to ME to instruct them, especially since I barely know what I’m doing as it is. Right? Right.

Also, yesterday I went to brunch with a couple of writer friends. Elizabeth Engstrom and Nancy Boutin — actually, I was meeting her for the first time. I haven’t felt like a fictionista for many weeks and talking with them helped me clear my head.  In reality, I hardly spoke — I was still so exhausted — but I left feeling better anyhow. I’ve gotta remember that I’m working the other stuff to pay the bills, that’s all.

So now, I’m about to spend the afternoon with my neglected manuscript. This work feels like a soul-sigh.