13 October 2001

Well, here I am, getting back on the horse. I went through the book of literary agents I got clear back in April and picked one and wrote the cover letter and printed it out and printed out the synopsis. I am at the "address envelope" stage right now. My hope is that I won't have both novels here at the same time. I really don't want to have to deal with two novel rejections on the same day. That would be, um. Messy.

You know who I feel sorry for in all of this? My parents. Because I chose a career in which Their Baby gets rejected several times a month, on a large or small scale. I picked something where random strangers get to kick me in the teeth, not just every once in awhile when I'm doing the job search thing or have a big project proposal, but all the time. And there's nothing they can do about it. When I talked to them yesterday, my mom basically asked if I had done all I could do to make this book good. Very much a Mommy Line. Because she can't do anything about the publishers, of course.

So they use the lines they're supposed to use -- be patient and keep working hard, it'll happen -- and we all wish they could be here to just give me hugs instead. Because that's what they mean.

For some reason I don't yet understand, I decided to call Ceej instead of e-mailing him yesterday with my bad news. And he was so sick and sounded so miserable that it took my mind off the book thing for awhile. Unfortunately, I couldn't take care of him in any way. It was kind of a mirror of what several of my friends have expressed feeling about me in the last few days: utter frustration because of my inability to help the situation. We ended up talking of many things, most of them deeper than one would expect under the circumstances. Or maybe just as deep.

Mark and I went out for Mexican food down the block (his was good, mine was bland and tough), and then we came home and watched "The Saint" and a couple of innings of the Cards game with Timprov. "The Saint" wins at least a nomination for Worst Movie Science. Because with the mutation movies, at least they weren't really pretending to have good science. With "The Saint," they bothered to have the right symbols, but then they just had such ridiculous misunderstandings of how science works at all that the entire plot was ludicrous. But I like Val Kilmer, so I was willing to put up with Elizabeth Shue (Worst Scientist Ever!) and The Science From Hell. Also, I was amused that one of the villains looked like Dwight D. Eisenhower.

So. Mark is going to trim the ends of my hair today, and I'm going to get ready to face the day in one way or another. I have stories to read and crit for tomorrow. I have to make sure the house is presentable in case anybody (and right now, that looks like it might be defined as "David and/or Mary Anne") decides to come back to the house after supper tonight. I have stories to work on, and if there's anything I can do about this new, nagging cough....