Sunday, July 11, 2010

When all Else Fails, I Read



Did I ever bother to mention here that for the last few months, my manuscript has been sitting at a publishing house, waiting to be read? Um, well, yeah. That's where it is, and that's whats up. I've stopped submitting to agents and I'm playing the waiting game with a publisher.

Why?

Because this publishing house says that they will read the whole manuscript. And that's what I've wanted and felt that I needed all along the way - someone who will read the whole thing, and make a decision from there. I know my first 50 pages are rough. I know I need to do a major re-write of some of the manuscript. And I'm willing to do that. I'm KEEN to do that. I just figure it would be better to have an editor from a publishing house tell me what to do at this point, and I still have an optimist buried inside me that keeps saying..."if they read the whole thing they will get the story, love the story, and they'll help you fix the bits that don't work."

They requested 4 months for a read. It's been 2 and a half months, and every day that I don't find my manuscript returned in my mailbox, I find my happiness quotient increasing exponentially. Am I in for a fall? Could be. Do I care? Nope. I'm just enjoying the daydream factor. Maybe at the end of the four months they'll reject me. And I'll have a bad day, or week, or month. But leading up to that, I've been hoping, wishing, dreaming, getting excited, making up fantastic scenarious of success in my head. So, if I do the math...I have four months of feeling good, vs. whatever time it takes to recuperate if they dish me. I'll take the four months of fantasylandthankyouverymuch.

Now, this wasn't what I was going to write about at all. I was going to write about James Rollin's new book and some things I learned as a result of reading it over the weekend. But, seeing as I have been horrid at posting lately, I am posting whatever shows up out of my fingertips at the moment they type. I'll save the tale of the bees for tomorrow...or as soon as I can get to it. Stay tuned, and enjoy your dreams!

2 comments:

Lisa K. said...

I think that daydream factor is what keeps us going as writers sometimes, those times when there is nothing but potential out there. I wish you the best of luck with the publishing house. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you!

Hart Johnson said...

Those dreams definitely feed us, and if you could get specific feedback that would do a TON for how you want to work the rewrite. You are working on something else now, yes? That is the other thing you want to make sure of... dream and hope, yes, but keep going so it the news at the end isn't what you want, you have another project you are invested in (softens the blow and actually may give you some insights into what isn't quite working)