Handed over like an old fish tank...

[la_belle_laide]

I'll probably always remember '10 as The Year I Got Serious About Getting Published. At least, I hope I can remember it that way, and not in some awful as-yet-unknown way, like I remember '09.

There's the agent and she's the BOMB, and I want so badly to query her because I'm convinced it would work. I know it's not wise to pin all my hopes on just one, (and I do have a few other really awesome-seeming ones on my list,) but I think she's really the cat's pajamas and I want to do this right. I was this close to querying her today, when I decided to take some of the advice she dishes out on her website and go to this one writing forum she highly recommends. I honestly think my query letter could get her attention, but if she doesn't like the manuscript, then what good would that do me? It'd be a waste of a good goddamn query, and of a really cool opportunity. Goddamn, she even really likes fanfic writers and wants us to mention our fanfic experience in our query! Can you imagine? Me, the writer of the most extensive LOZ fic in LOZ fandom history. ^_~;; *polishes fingernails on lapel* Hehe. *cough*

However, being a fanfic writer is the whole big fish/little pond thing. It's not enough and it's not good enough. I know that; I do.

So, I panicked about the ms and decided to get further crit. I changed up a few things. As I always do, each time I panic over it. And I just can't query her yet. Not until I can get a few suggestions about how to make it shinier. Or how to make it shine at all. I mean, I know I don't suck or anything. My grammar, syntax, and spelling are all usually just the berries, I have a decent voice and a pretty good ear for dialog. But my pacing, man, the pacing. I know I get lost in my own head and for as much as I cut back to get the effing show on the mothergrabbing road, I feel like it's still not enough. I don't want to screw up.

It's funny, I was having a nice, long soak in an oil bath before and thinking, “Oh man, I got this. I've just got it. The novel only needs a few tweaks. It doesn't need to be re-written, just snazzed up a little.” And, I had the perfect ideas, the perfect how. It all made sense in the womb of the bathtub, I dunno why that is.

Then I had to get the laundry out of the dryer, put a t shirt on Sano (skin infection or rash or something, don't you know, more vet bills,) and finish up washing all the dogs' beds and coats and such (in case it was some kind of allergy to something in the fabric,) and clean up the bathroom, fold my own sheets, blah blah dicker blah, and by the time I sat down with the OpenOffice program and looked at the frakking blinking cursor, that mafah was gone like—to quote my own MC--”like a gnat's whistle in a windstorm.”

I want this. I really, really do. I know that's not enough and a book deal is not going to be handed to me for free like an old fish tank. (Hey, now there's a simile not many people can use. “Handed to me like an old fish tank.” “Vanished, like an old oak table.” LOL.) I am willing to work, but of course, one never says that in a query letter. “I'd be glad to send you the entire manuscript at your convenience. It's finished and all, polished to Your Mom and back, but if you don't like it, I can totally make it tons better. I mean, just say the word, really, and I will get right on it. I'm a hard worker and with a little direction I can make it even better.”

I'm watching Dexter last night and wringing my hands over how the protagonist is going to get away with it. My palms sweat when it looks like he might get caught. I don't even want him to be suspected. I feel sympathy if someone hurts his non-feelings. And I just have to know what comes next. Sometimes the stuff they get away with is full-on retarded and the plot has light-year-wide gaps in it, (honestly, did you just let a civilian junkie into a crime-scene morgue so she could poke a dead body and take a gander at the evidence?) but I don't even mind, because I care too much about what's going to happen next. That's what I'm saying, see, the storytelling is masterful, and I want to be so masterful that even if I do make some kind of dumb oversight or leap of logic, readers will still not want to put the book down.

I just don't know if I am doing that, because I'm so goddamn tired of this novel that I don't even know right from wrong anymore. Err, in terms of writing. :)

That's what I wish to put across to a prospective agent, that I take crit and suggestions very well. I want it to be as good as it can be and I'm willing to work in order to make it so.

But you kinda can't just put that into a query letter. It's simply not done that way. But, it's hard not to rush into it. What if she decides before then that she doesn't want queries? GAH.

Le sigh.

Ah, the fish tank. Well, I wanted to clean that all up today and get it running, so that I could go and get some fish tomorrow, but that ended up not happening. Sano, the vet, the sudden washing of all dog stuff, the lack of a stand to put it on. It sucks because Monday and Tuesday are my only days. Then there's shopping, writing, eating, cleaning, homework, stuff. Well, maybe I can do it Friday and then get some fishes after work Saturday. Who knows. I know just which fish I want, too.

Oh, snap, I haven't done a word of homework this weekend. Not a single word of it. :/ Well, that's what 3 hour breaks are for, I guess.

Back to it! ^_^

Comments

[shonagonchan.livejournal.com]

I knew someone would get it! I don't have a Blackadder icon so I have to use this one. I'm always looking for an excuse anyway. :)

Oooooh, calendula, and BACHS. I didn't even think of those. At first I used tea tree oil but I think that might have been exacerbating it; it's so drying. Now I'm using aloe from my plant.

Sano's vet (this awesome lady at the emergency clinic) suggested dropping the wheat grass supplement, as maybe he's allergic. O_O If it doesn't clear up, we're off to bankruptcy the dermatologist. :/