It's just a game.

Originally I was going to do an obligatory end of the year post and even title it as so, but after watching my beloved Mizzou Tigers lose to the Farm boys of the University of Iowa, I had a different idea for a blog post.  (I also decided to break my own rules and post on a Thursday when I normally do M-W-F, I'm SUCH a rebel).

I can’t pretend like part of me didn’t take it personally that Iowa and Mizzou were playing each other in a bowl game.  Some friends I had a falling out with this year went to Iowa and were kind of pretentious about the fact that they went to a Big 10 school and about their football program.  (Mind you I didn’t go to Mizzou, but my husband’s family went there and have season tickets so we are big fans).

I was selfish.  I used my prayers that night to pray that Mizzou would beat Iowa and admitted that I felt like Mizzou losing would mean that I had lost to these people that had been so mean to me.  When my husband came home, from a friend’s house, after the game and told me that Missouri lost by 3 points I was pretty upset, but then he said something that changed everything.

It’s just a game.

Those four little words changed everything.  It is just a game, it doesn’t change who I am or who these other people are.  It doesn’t make me any less of a Mizzou fan or make me any less of a person because my team lost.  I then realized how much this has applied to my year in 2010.

In December/January I finished my first novel and did one of the biggest mistakes a writer could make…I loosely edited it and started querying it in February before it was ready.  I faced a lot of rejections on my query, but I was okay with that.  I started working on my query and even got a few beta readers for the novel.  By March I actually had my first full request and I was overjoyed, but if you’ve read this blog then you realize that it turned into a rejection.  I cried..ALOT.  I made my husband come home early from hanging out with his friends to find me sobbing in bed with a box of Girl Scout cookies.  He sat down next to me and said, “It was only one rejection.  It doesn’t make you any less of a writer.  If you’re going to get this way over one little rejection then maybe you shouldn’t write anymore.”

It’s just a game.  It’s just a rejection.

I picked up the pieces and—after finishing my box of Thin Mints because you really shouldn’t waste those—I started a plan.  I knew that writing was something that I loved and I shouldn’t just quit after one rejection.  I joined RWA, found critique partners, and joined a local writers group.  In that time I also just happened to get married and go on an amazing honeymoon to Sicily.  By the time I got back I was refreshed, I had a new query, and a completely revised manuscript that I started querying and was getting full and partial requests left and right.  None of them ended up in anything more than rejections, so I had decided that I wanted to take some time and really focus on writing…maybe even go part-time at work, but then something changed.  I got pregnant.

It’s just a game.

Another road block, so I thought.  I can’t write full-time and not work, how will I afford child care?  So I put those dreams aside and stayed at my job full-time.  I also realized that maybe it was time to start working on another novel.  So in the fall of 2010 I started a YA sci-fi manuscript.  I never realized how much having a child could change my writing and how much BETTER this manuscript was than the other one.  All of a sudden I cared if my future child would read this manuscript and how I wanted her to have a heroine to look up to.  I was on a writing high.  I had tons of blog followers, people telling me they loved my new story and even published authors talking to me.  Then a contest I had entered my original manuscript in had informed that I hadn’t won and I got some unkind feedback…

It’s just a game.

I wanted to cry. I may love my new manuscript, but that one was my first—my baby.  That’s when I really had to re-evaluate.  Do I continue trying to query this manuscript, revise the whole thing with suggestions, or shelf it and continue with the sci-fi?  I chose the latter.  It didn’t change how I felt about the manuscript, but deep down I must have known that it wasn’t right for me.  Just like the Mizzou tigers. I don’t hate my manuscript for not being able to land an agent and it doesn’t make me any less of a writer because I had one manuscript that wasn’t loved by everyone.  It doesn’t make me any less of a Mizzou fan because they lost or make the Iowa fans any better than me because their team won their game.  Just like it doesn’t make me any less of a writer because other writers have gotten agents before me or publishing contracts.  In the end…  It’s just a game.

I hope you all have a joyous New Year and that 2011 brings you all the joys and happiness that you could ask for.  But if it doesn’t always remember:

It’s just a game.

Roll With The Punches

A punch usually is referred to as a delicious fruity drink or being hit in the face with someone else's fist.  When the punching bag talks about "punches"  It's usually not the same thing.

When I refer to a "punch" it's those little obstacles that get in the way, those things that bring you down and make you feel icky.  When someone makes fun of you - that's a punch, when your work gets criticized- that's a punch.  So the question is, how do we fight back all of these punches?

I entered my Women's Fiction manuscript in a contest a few months ago and just got the results...needless to say they weren't pretty.  (And a couple of them said that I have a better YA voice than Women's Fiction..snort)  Yeah, it hurt, these judges were saying the opposite things that my critique partners and friends had told me  So did I cry?  Did I give up on writing completely?

HECK NO!

So what did I do?  Well I told my husband and one of my critique partners that this was my last hurrah for MY PAPER HEART.  I stopped querying over the summer and I said if this contest doesn't do anything for me then I'm shelving it.  It's kind of sad since I really did love this story and these characters, but it was also a hard market to sell with a college aged protagonist and a story that's been told before, but just with my take on it.

HOW TO DATE AN ALIEN has NOT been shelved, that manuscript is just being revised.  I sent my manuscript to a friend just to "read in her spare time" and she actually got it back to me with revision notes and said that she loved the concept.  (An agented writer friend, don't know if she wants her name posted, so it's not).  I was actually surprised to get notes back and am SO excited to have writer friends that believe in me as a writer!

Even if HOW TO DATE AN ALIEN doesn't get me an agent or a publishing contract, I'm not going to stop.  I love writing and I think I'm pretty good at it (who cares what a few judges in a contest say?).  The road to publication is paved in rejection letters and I'm ready to do some walking!

How do you deal with rejections and your "punches"?  Do you need a punching bag of your own?

Funky Friday

So originally I had planned to do my first "Fangirl Friday" post, but then I felt like this Friday was feeling a bit "funky."  (Oh yeah think Glee).  Well I got another rejection, which let me tell you I'm getting sick of these things collecting dust in my inbox!  But you know what?  I can't let myself stay in this funk of "Oh man my work stinks" because there are people that actually do really like my manuscript.  Every beta reader (so far) has said they couldn't put it down.  (one in particular didn't get out of her jammies and sat in bed almost all day reading.)  So what does that tell me?  The work is good and it's been critiqued and edited and even professionally edited.  It's just where do I go from here?  Well instead of staying in my funk it's time to get funky.

So what did they do on Glee when they were in a funk?  Focused on what their competition didn't have (Funk!  Like the music.)

So what do I have that my competition doesn't?  Well, how many college aged manuscripts do you see out there? Not alot.  How many of them have a professional editor that's been working with them to make it the best darn manuscript possible?  And most of all..how many love their manuscript as much as I love mine?

Okay that one may be another story.  The  more I read it, the more I love it and dont' want to change it.

So as I thought about my funk and fangirlness I realized that to get out of my "funk" I have to fangirl my own story.  Sell it.  I've got the query letter that rocks their socks off and if someone will just pick up my partial then we are golden!

I've been told to maybe revise my first 30 pages, but every time I look at them or try it a different way I just can't see another way to do it without taking out huge chunks.  So I'm going to keep on keeping on.  Sending out more queries, maybe listen to some funk and keep on keeping on!

Love

So you think I'm going to write about Love, do ya?

Well this is love, but not the love that you are thinking of (Though Hubby poo is great).

I just wanted to say that I love, love, LOVE my first completed manuscript. Yes it is currently with an editor and once she is done tearing it to shreds and then I add those edits in to make it the best story ever, I honestly can't wait to query again.

Call me a nerd (this happens alot), call me whatever but I think you have to love your work very much to take all the rejection that comes along with it. When I was getting picked on in school, I wasn't ready yet to stand up for those things I really liked, but the things that I really loved I did defend till the death of them.

For instance: I had knee-high black I believe eighteen eyed pleather boots. I LOVED these boots. I got made fun of till no end in 8th grade for having these boots, but I didn't stop wearing them just because no one else liked them.

I think this is how everyone should feel about things that they love. Don't stop writing just because you get rejected! Don't stop singing just because you're off key! And don't stop reading those books you love just because people tell you that you look silly reading about teenage vampires!

Love what you do and if you don't love it, then why are you doing it?