Thursday, April 7, 2011

Frenzied, Fabulous...Failure

I spent three days dreaming up the perfect “F” word and all I could come up with was that song by Cee Lo Green, F______ YOU”. Regardless of the version you choose, the result is the same. While I adore the song, both versions, decided I’d best not choose either of those “F”s.

Frenzied describes my life right now. I write, I blog, I cook, I edit, I query, I tweet, I FaceBook, and do all the things that have to be done, eating, cleaning, bathing, pretending to listen to my other (money man), and all at a frenzied pace, but I still feel three days behind.

Fabulous is my first grandbaby. She’s beyond amazing and I could spend every second holding her, and kissing her little fingers and toes. In fact, when I get to spend time with her I don’t set her down, much to my son’s chagrin, but he can get over it.




Failure. No matter how big the pep talk I give myself prior to reading that email. You know the one, the response to your query one. When the answer is no, whether it’s an eloquent note, a long description of why not, or the evil abominable form letter, I feel like a failure. I know there are thousands of agents out there and I only need one, but each reject makes me sick, literally.

Failure. Failure. Failure. I read the rejection ten times at least, trying to glean every shred of useable info imparted. I take that chunk of criticism and go back to edit and then despair. Unless the agent has specifically said I can resubmit, I sit there and stew, and pout, and frown, and curse the futility of trying to get published and then the inevitable. I google self-publishing websites and read their promises of automatic success and world-wide recognition. I’m not ready to go there yet, but it gives me a glimmer of hope. It makes the failure easier to swallow anyway.

6 comments:

  1. Failure is the spice of life! At least that's what I keep telling myself...

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  2. Well Alex I'm feeling pretty spicy about now! haha

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  3. Hi Lea

    Thanks so much for visiting my blog.
    Great to make your acqaintance.

    I'm so with you on the failure. But you know the fact that we're rejected makes us 'proper' writers - or that's what I figure. Hang in there.

    Look forward to following your posts and writing.

    warm wishes
    Debbie

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  4. I think I read some where but don't quote me that Stephen King had hundreds of rejections before getting published. And as legend has it, his wife pulled Carrie out of the trash can, read it and insisted he send it in again. The rest is history. Never give up and write every day.

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  5. Thanks Regge and Debbie, not giving up, just whining a little. Querying does that to me.

    Thanks for the follow.

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  6. Love the look and feel of your blog, thanks for stopping by mine. I am now following and look forward to reading more.

    The failure thing is hard to deal with, I am a published author and still the rejections on the new novel hit as hard as they ever did. But I know it does happen,one day you will get an email like I did, that says we love your work and want to publish it...that email makes up for all the others and then some.

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