Friday, December 6, 2013

The Haul and Wait

Monday, December 2, 2013 was the submission day for the fabulous Brenda Drake's PitchWars. (To find out more information on what PitchWars is, feel free to click the link - it'll take you to her blog and she can explain things a hell of a lot better than I can at the moment.)

Bottom line, if you have a finished manuscript that you're ready to query with, you apply for a mentor. They'll read your query and your sample pages - sometimes even ask for more - and then they'll give you feedback on why they did or didn't accept it on December 11. I know that's only five days away, but it's going to feel more like a month away, really.

I'm not very good at waiting.

The last time I entered a contest like this was during my semester from hell (I think) and I entered Sage, and I totally botched my applications, in all honesty. It was awful. Last year I chose not to enter, because I didn't have anything that I really, really thought would be worth it.

This time I offered up Matt & Topher like proverbial lambs. I've had some success with them in pitch contests on twitter, and I've gotten plenty of rejections with them doing e-queries, so I'm really curious to see how they'll do. It will also be an opportunity to find out what I need to work on - because there's always something that can be improved - and that advice will prove valuable even if, ultimately, the boys and I go nowhere but back to the drawing board.

In the mean time, so I don't freak myself out totally while waiting and obsessively checking the Pitch Wars hashtag, I work at the hotel (for a rather funny picture from Wednesday, check out my Instagram feed for the chalk outline from the kitchen) and I work on getting a little further in Frost, my re-working of Jack Frost that I started three years ago. In other words, I keep busy so I won't go nuts. So far it's working. Hopefully the next five days will go much the same.

Happy Friday and have a good weekend.

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Something to Be Thankful For

Last week was Thanksgiving. We had, as per usual, a boatload of people in the house. We also had a boatload of people staying in our hours for the week, too. My aunt and uncle from Maine, my two cousins and their dog from South Carolina, stayed at our bed and breakfast (what we jokingly call our house in the summer because it's like a permanently revolving door twenty-four hours a day with who is getting up for work, leaving for work, and coming home from work...but that's a different story for another time) and we had something like sixteen or seventeen people for dinner Thursday.

I had to work. It was an utter madhouse at the hotel: we did 685 for our buffet dinner, ran out of turkey, and had fun with each other so we didn't go absolutely batshit crazy. Well, we went batshit crazy anyway, but the highlight of having to work on a day when we were supposed to be with our families - which people continually thanked us for - was sitting down at the end after all the customers had left and the dishes had been taken back to the kitchen, and having our own sort of family dinner from the left overs. We were all tired and punchy and it was one of those things that I'll hang onto for a long time.

What I'll also hang onto is that a week ago Monday was my twenty-fourth birthday. With all that happened this year - and it's been a rough year - I honestly, at some points, didn't think I would see it. But I did. And to be able to celebrate it, and look forward to another year patched up and ready to take on the world is something that will make this birthday the most special that I will ever have. I will always remember this one. Not because of the food or the presents, but simply because I am still alive.

My family, the jokers they are, have hinted they're going to get me a cow tag - like you can buy at Tractor Supply - with the number 23 on it. I have to say I really like this idea, and I'm hoping to find it in my stocking on Christmas morning. And if anybody asks me about it, well, I have a story that's stranger than fiction. But they say the truth usually is.

Hope you all had a happy holiday, and oh, hey, it's December. When the hell did that happen?
"The difference between life and the movies is that a script has to make sense, and life doesn't."

-Joseph L. Mankiewicz