It’s amazing the things I learn from Twitter. Today I learned that it’s Agent Appreciation Day! So I would like to take a moment to thank my agent, Barbara Kouts for believing in me before anyone else did. She plucked me out of obscurity several years ago, and even though my first manuscript didn’t sell (nor did the second) I always felt her enthusiasm for my writing.

When I wrote my very first novel, she accomplished the truly amazing feat of securing an editor before I was even finished with it! Now that’s talent.

And since then, she has been encouraging in my writerly endeavors, despite the fact that we haven’t been able to get another book on the shelves.

I don’t think I’d have much confidence without Barbara, so I’m taking the time to say, “Thank you!” I certainly wouldn’t be where I am without you.

It is a deluge outside. These were the kinds of days I liked best when I was a kid. There’s something about a sheet of rain cutting me off from the world at large that makes me feel cocooned and more creative. It’s almost the same way that I feel at night when the mysterious darkness prompts me to make up a story and fill out all the things my eyes can’t see. It may be that “it was a dark and stormy night” came out of the same feeling. I like thinking I’m in the company of greats… Bulwer-Lytton, L’Engle, Snoopy…

I really do admire those who can write poetry
They can find the greatest rhymes
But I’m not one of them. You’ll see

Every time I think of symbols and alliteration
My muscles go into convulsions
And I’m floored with palpitations

I really love to read the poems that other people write
But if I’m asked to write one, well
I’m an old-school vampire in the light

So if you need a freelancer who can write poetry
Don’t expect a stellar job
Though I’ll do it for the money

It’s important to celebrate the accomplishments of this year before setting goals for the next. Here’s how and why I’m doing it in ‘09.

The Non-Fiction Department is finally over the trauma of having to write the Stephenie Meyer bio… I mean, GETTING TO… they got to write the Meyer bio… and they are very pleased with their recent coup of securing  an Al Gore bio for next year, and that the Sharon Creech bio got the green light last week. Alright guys, the chest bumps and high fives are getting noisy.

The Fiction Department is still sulky over the demise of novel #2. We’re going to have to coax them out with peppermint sticks and eggnog. Although our agent is very pleased with the draft of novel #3, and writing an entirely new story during NaNoWriMo was a huge accomplishment, Fiction isn’t hearing it. They’re taking out most of their frustrations on the Marketing Department, which hasn’t come up with a decent title for novel #3 yet.

Marketing is completely ignoring Fiction as they rethink our online strategy  for 2010. A little nog might get them out of meetings. Think they’ll make up with Fiction over their shared love of the nog? Stay tuned.

Research and Development is looking forward to getting into some creepy creature research for novel #3 and hoping they can trump Marketing by coming up with a title themselves. They’re also gearing up for Gore next year.

The Technical Writing Department is still neck-deep in freelance work, and will be happy to see anything but the computer screen for a few minutes.

As for the Legal and Tech Departments (my husband) and Creative Mischief (the kids)… they’re not around (but I’ll save them some treats).

So we’re playing Christmas Carols, drinking nog, eating peppermint sticks and opening the Secret Santa gift. I picked it out myself and I’m sure all the departments will agree that it’s super awesome.

I did love many of the suggestions. I even thought of naming my robot ”Or” in honor of Karen’s suggestion, “Or Harold” but my  daughter trumped all when she suggested that he should have the initial E and she did it with full robot staccato arms. Who can resist a 7 year old doing the robot? And saying “bleep, boop, blip?” Not me.

So I can now present, Mr. E. Robot. You can call him Mr. E. for short.

You know I like a pun.

I am a noveling machine (so says my NaNoWriMo ‘09 t-shirt). But I’m not really a machine. And that’s why I knitted this little cutie.

Is cute really the word? This dude means business.

It’s there to remind me that since I am not a robot, I deserve to give myself a break from time to time.

It’s also there because it’s nice to imagine an efficient literary robot doing all my heavy word-lifting for me.

But I’m having the same problem with it as I’m having with novel #3: it has no name.

So, name that robot.

Christmas!

No, not that! I mean, yes it is, but that isn’t what I’m thinking about.

Revisions?

Yep. That one.

Now that Nano is over, a lot of people are jumping into Revision Land, where words get the guillotine and paragraphs stand in front of a firing squad. It’s brutal in Revision Land… ink splattered all over the white landscape… but I’m not there, at least not for my Nano-winning story (my heroine is STILL talking and I’m still taking notes as fast as my little fingers can move). I set aside December for doing research and revisions on the novel that my agent called “creepy” but in a good way. After five years, I wish I had a decent title for that darn thing. John Shaw Billings said, “first have something to say, second say it, third stop when you have said it, and finally give it an accurate title.” I’m not at the accurate title bit yet. The current one sucks hairy scary monster bits. If all else fails, I might have to resort to the original eleven-word beaut that I used when I was first making notes, which would be hard to fit on the cover of anything but a World Almanac.

Maybe Santa will bring me a great title for Christmas. It is December, after all.

I’ve written a draft in 30 days before, so when I signed up for NaNoWriMo I figured it would be a piece of cake. Well, somewhere around week three I hit a wall and dropped out of the race. But then a funny thing happened. Call it determination, or blind ambition, or sour grapes, but I picked it up a few days after I called it quits and my heroine showed up for the writing session.

The whole time I’d been writing as the narrator in close third person, but here was my heroine with her own voice, and God bless her she was hysterical. I took steno while she told me everything that was happening. In a couple of days I caught up to the daily goal, and yesterday, my winner’s badge came flying overhead when I put in my word count for the day. I didn’t even realize I had passed 50k. And then you know what happened? She didn’t shut up. This morning while I was washing my hair, she started to tell me about a friend of hers. Turns out he was already in my version, but in hers, he’s more important. And the people that I thought were important when I was narrating now barely factor in at all. They’re there, some of them now have different names, but she decided to keep them. Maybe she felt a little pity for me and all that uphill slogging I did the first three weeks.

Honestly, I’m slightly baffled. I had been fighting with this story  since November 1st, and now that it’s over, the story is flowing out of me, easy peasy.

Now, I KNOW that the characters are supposed to drive the story. And I know that I can’t drag a novel along on its ears, thrashing behind me in protest. I know all these things, but because I was writing for NaNo and because I wanted to win, all those things that I know went through the window. Should I have waited for my heroine to show up when she was ready? Or was it pushing myself to write the story down, no matter how hard it was, that forced her to show up in my head and start making corrections because she was so fed up of what a bad job I was doing at telling her tale?

Guys, I don’t know. But I’ll tell you this: I am. Totally. Doing this. Again.

See you next year, Wrimos!

This morning my husband and I were quietly sleeping when one tiny person climbed between us, and a little while later, a slightly bigger person climbed between, this one with a brown bunny in tow. We tangled together under the blankets and all struggled a little for space, but I am thankful for this.

I am also thankful that I managed to finish the introduction chapter for my Sharon Creech biography. This takes a lot of pressure off for my December 1 deadline.

I am thankful that I’m able to work from home, and even more thankful that the work I do is writing.

For tomorrow, I’m thankful not to be cooking. For the second year in a row, we’re having thanksgiving dinner catered. This makes my life so easy, you don’t even know.

I’m very excited for Christmas decorating tomorrow, and getting some time this weekend to finish up my robot. All that poor thing has right now are a pair of legs! At least it hasn’t gone walking off yet in frustration at its half-doneness. I haven’t forgotten you, robot!

I hope everyone is thankful for the many things they have in their lives, and I wish you all a very happy thanksgiving.

Feast on!

I’d love to tell you to just dust yourself off and try again, but that’s a load of something I can’t write on this blog since sometimes small children read it.

The first thing you have to do is deal with it. You just got rejected by an agent/publisher/your own agent!/your writing group/a random slush-pile intern. So yeah, feel sorry for yourself. Go ahead. You worked on something,  you sent it out, and nobody understood it, so it’s only natural that you’d feel badly. Go have a drink, buy a new pair of shoes, scream into the abyss. Do it! Your neighbors might judge you but I won’t, I swear.

The next thing you have to do (and this is important): DON’T BLAME THE PUBLISHING INDUSTRY. Yes, it sucks, yes, it’s imperfect, but you’re trying to break into it, aren’t you? If it’s so bad, you’d be doing something else. And if you weren’t rejected, you’d probably be singing its praises or making burnt-manuscript offerings to its gods, so don’t go there. Don’t be that guy.

What comes next is pretty critical. Go find your friends, or your mom/husband/wife/significant other. They are there for you to complain to. Only they know you well enough to know that you’re pretty amazing, and they are going to give you some comfort. I happen to have a pretty stellar group of friends myself, all of whom I rely on pretty heavily when the you-know-what hits the fan. Your mom/husband/wife/significant other is probably also going to give you a nice speech about being strong and taking chances and keepin’ on keepin’ on. That’s good too if it gets you off your behind to do the next thing.

And that is, write something else. Like, immediately. Nothing gets you over that last breakup like the next relationship (at least that’s the way it worked when I was dating) and writing is a lot like that. The next story will heal what ails you from the last one. I gah. ran. tee.

Now if you’re like me (super competitive, extremely ambitious, and not wildly successful) all of this will get you to move on, but it won’t be enough to really get your self-esteem back on track. For that, you’re going to need to pull out the big guns: CRAFT PROJECT! I know. Bear with me. You are going to have to dig out every last thing that anyone ever said or wrote or drew or sang about you and your writing and put it up on a bulletin board and put that whole thing over the spot where you write. If you move around, get a small bulletin board and move that thing around with you. If you like to write in coffee shops, take a picture of it and make it your wallpaper. You need to remind yourself why you’re doing this and surround yourself with the encouragement of those who believe you can.

Look, self-doubt comes with the territory. Every artist is plagued with it, but when you’re just starting out and there isn’t a lot of support for your work, you need to generate it for yourself. So go find that 5th grade paper that Mrs. Kellerman thought was better than Proust, and go find that margin of one page in your manuscript where someone in your writing group wrote, “this line made me cry.” Get them all together and make the best damn bulletin board EVAH! Because if it keeps you out of the dumps, it will keep you writing, and the more you write, the better you will get, and the better you get, the more marketable your writing will be, and the more marketable it is, the more likely someone will pick it up and say, “where has this story been all my life?” and then you will have yet another thing to put on that awesome board for the next time publishing rubs your face in the dirt. Because honey, it’ll probably happen again, even if you do become wildly successful.