Opening Up to Rejection

I still haven't heard back from the agent. I keep telling myself it's too soon and it really is, but that still doesn't stop the anxiety from rising time to time. I'm trying my best to shore up my defenses, to submerge my brain and heart and soul into the pool called reality before I hear back. Most likely it will be a form rejection letter, I know that. My brain knows that at least. My heart and soul are a little less sure of that fact and are wary and hopeful at the same time.

This line that I walk as a writer is a fine one. I need to put my soul into my work, then I have to lay it all out on the line. And even if rejected, I have to put my soul on the line again to keep writing, to keep trying. My brain knows this, it knows what it should keep doing, but the brain is only one third of what I need to be successful. My brain I'm fine with until the heart and soul start messing with it, and until my brain tries to rationalize what my heart and soul feel, until my brain shores up its defenses so tight that nothing gets into my heart and soul, or out of it. This is what I'm trying to prevent from happening.

Am I being too sensitive about it? Sure, I am, my brain knows that. My heart and soul haven't had the exercise my brain has had though, they aren't as strong and are much much more fragile. So I ride this line, the one between reality and hope, and between hope and dreams carefully.

Some friends tell me that of course I'll be chosen, its a great book, great query letter etc... but those friends aren't perhaps aware of how the publishing world works. Other friends tell me that the agent is stupid if he doesn't want to at least view a partial, and I dearly hope these friends are right and I also hope the agent isn't stupid :) Other friends try the realist approach, probably the one I need most now. Many authors are rejected for years over and over again for years but keep writing. I need to remember these authors during this time. I need to remember that nothing good happens without risk and you can't risk if you don't put any of yourself out there on the line.

So friends, family, help me strengthen my heart and my soul, not harden it, but strengthen them to stand on their own two feet, to be able to ride out of the storm if there is one, to be sure enough of themselves to keep on trying, to keep on giving.

Because I want those things, I want to keep giving, I NEED to vent my creativity. so if not for anyone else, I need to strengthen my heart and soul for me, because whatever happens, I NEED to keep writing. For sanity? Happiness? Fulfillment? I don't know, but that doesn't make the need any less potent. All I know for sure is one thing...

I am a writer.

Out of Control cont.

I write the beginning of this some time ago and really liked it. I was diligently working on book 2 the other day and my brain wouldn't cooperate with it so I worked on something else... I added onto Out of Control... here it is so far...

Out of control. Does anyone know what that truly means? Sure there are drunken nights where we go a little wild, but we still made those choices. Our minds were under the influence of alcohol, but alcohol doesn’t tell us what to do. It cannot control us, it simply loosens our morals a bit, causing us to do what we would if we had no inhibitions. Alcohol makes us do what we really want to do.

That certainly isn’t being out of control, perhaps being drunk is simply being out of the control of society, of civilization.

But what truly is being out of control? We have choices we make everyday. The waking up in the morning, the getting out of bed—we choose that. We wear certain clothes. We talk with certain words—all choices.

What if all that was taken away from you? What if you weren’t even able to think your own thoughts? If you had no control over your motor functions? What if someone—something—had control over your breathing, and even when you blinked?

Welcome to my world.


***


Water pounded on my bloody fingernails as my brain snapped into place. They had given me back control too early…again. If only that were a good thing. I much preferred the days when I woke up blissfully unaware of my nighttime activities.

My stomach revolted and I doubled over in pain, awaiting the worst to come. Every awakening was the same—a moment of clear headedness followed by the racing stream of images of my covert actions. Like a dream, they drifted out of my mind’s grasp as soon as I tried to hold on. The memories I lacked were as elusive as the chip in my head was present.

Our bodies are ruled by little electrical pulses directed by our brains. A chip can control those pulses more effectively than our brains. The technology that held me together and kept me alive was the bane of my existence. The irony was not lost on me.

Decisions had been decided, deals had been done—I’d made this choice. Purging myself of whatever entered my stomach from the night before was on par with me trying to vomit the remnants of the deal I made with the titanium devil—fruitless. I’d have to eat again and I couldn’t survive without my mechanical friends.
Dragging my sorry ass out of the bathroom, I looked at the clock in the kitchen, seven in the morning. Not bad, I’d only lost a few hours this time. How much damage could I have done in three hours time? Downing a glass of water from the sink, the taste of regret and vomit was replaced with the cotton mouth feel of dread. The cordless phone sat innocently on the counter, unaware of its part in my mood swing. The date and time on the caller id taunted as it flashed. Picking up the phone, I threw it across the room at the clock. Both smashed into bits and after leaving a sizable dent in the wall, fell to the floor.
I hadn’t been booted up for three hours.
I’d been plugged in for three weeks.
***
The second I knocked on the door, I regretted my decision to come here. I bounced my heel on the ground of the dirty alley while I waited for Fister to come to the door. I’d never been here before, but just like every other Jack, a term used to describe those of us who jack into the system, I knew who Fister was and where he lived. He was a shyster was what he was. And where he was? Well picture the most God awful place imaginable… the place where even sin is afraid to come…where nightmares are preferable to reality and you have the abode of one Mr. Fister.

I looked down both ways of the alley. No one was here not even the rats. If the rodents were smart enough to stay away why the hell wasn’t I?

“Marilee Jenkins, what an unexpected, albeit no less delightful, surprise.”

Jerking my head back to the doorway, I stopped breathing for a moment when I met the eyes of the man before me—the man who shouldn’t know who I was. Handsome in the traditional sense of symmetrical features, Fister’s face wasn’t appealing in the slightest. His too wide mouth was not softened by slightly full lips, but hardened by thin stretched bands instead. His teeth were straight enough, but from years of bad hygiene, they’d rotted away until small points were left. His eyes were actually quite a nice cross between blue and gray but his pupils were always so small you felt as if he would prick you with them at any given moment. The man would’ve looked okay from a distance in profile. He’d probably even look nice, a model citizen if you will with his unassuming medium brown hair, as long as he didn’t show his teeth or turn his stare on you.

The man was scarred, oh not on the outside mind you, no his skin was flawless on the outsides. On the inside, running just under the surface of Mr. Fister was being comprised completely of scars, some his own, but mostly the scars of others. You see, Fister here is a scavenger—a self made Frankenstein.

D Day!

My query letter is written, finalized, printed and placed inside an addressed envelope with a SASE. All I need to do is seal it and put a stamp on it. Easy enough right? Oh probably except this is the first time I've ever done this and I need someone to hold my hand and tell me it's all going to all okay.

Is my manuscript really done? Are the first three chapters good enough to make the cut?

BLAH! GET OVER IT! *deep breath* Okay I'm over it I did it, it's sealed stamped and put in the mailbox. Wish me luck!

Things be always be worse tho, I could be this guy...

Comparing your work

I'm feelig a bit conflicted today. I can't say who said this as it is one of a "Ya know what they say." Well they said that the traits you don't like in someone else, are the ones you don't like in yourself. I'm wondering if that's true with writing as well.

I just finished a book by a very popular author that I like, but I didn't like this book. I felt the plot was forced, the character interaction abysmal and found the resolution lacking. Now, I think I do a pretty good job on the character interaction in my own writing, but I will admit that there are times when I definitely feel like I don't know to make a mystery work. When the Aha! moment to me seems weak or forced. I think that since I already know what's going on I wrote the damn thing afterall, that the Aha! moment isn't going to be a moment of revelation because I knew it all from the beginning. So I can't really judge that moment very well. Is writing this pinnacle moment something an author learns over time or is it instinctual? Any thoughts on this would be great!

Sandra: the woman, the writer and the reader on Susan Elizabeth Phillips

I’m emotionally exhausted. I wish I could say it’s from me putting my all into my book, but it isn’t. I just finished reading Susan Elizabeth Phillip’s book, “Honey Moon.” As with most of her books, but especially the ones from the early nineties, she puts me through the emotional wringer. There are so many ups, downs, twists turns and in this last one, even a spiral, that I’m left reeling when I finally close the back cover. There isn’t a book of hers so far that I haven’t been snookered into reading in one day. And believe me, to go through all those emotions in a day is a harrowing experience. When I finally finish that last page and look at her picture on the inside of the back flap, I don’t know whether to curse or praise Phillips. As a woman, I curse her because she brings too many of my own emotions to the surface, as an author I admire her and am fiercely jealous. As a reader I’m in awe of her talent and her insight into the human mind. I saw her speak at the Romance Writers of America conference last year in Atlanta, GA. I wonder if her insight into the human psyche is from her past as an actress? Either way, she puts so much into these books that I’m amazed she has anything left of herself. I suppose I shouldn’t be too amazed, seeing as her and Honey just took a small part of me with them. Hats off to you Susan Elizabeth Phillips!