Elation (Day 1): You'll probably have a book contract by this time tomorrow!
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| Yay! YAAAAY. yay |
Zen (Day 2, Morning): You write for the joy of it, not the money. You finished your beautiful precious novel baby and nudged it out of the nest for the world to see. No matter what happens now, you're successful in your own eyes.
Stalking (Day 2, Late Morning): This book needs to fucking sell. You lurk on random editor's twitters, on the 1 in 1 billion chance they're actually the ones reading your book. Every word is an arcane code, speaking to you in anagrams about how much they actually hate your book.
Innocent Editor X: Can't wait for the Gossip Girl finale! Are Blair and Chuck finally gonna get together or what?
You: Oh God, she likes contemporary. She hates romance. She likes romance. My book has romance. I could quit my job and revise and resend tonight. I know my book is set in 1800s Croatia BUT I CAN PUT SKINNY JEANS AND COCKTAILS IN IT I SWEAR.
Obsession (Day 3, 2:00am): You trawl through blog archives for every YA deal made in the last 2 years. With horror, you realize some authors sold within hours. You create spreadsheets and graphs to better chart what a worthless loser you have become.
Repetitive Refreshment Injury (Day 3): The graph took until 5:00 in the morning. You're too exhausted to work. There's nothing left but you. And gmail.
Despair (Day 3): You realize you don't have to hit the refresh button for gmail to update. Life loses all meaning.
Phoenix-like Rebirth (Day 5): You never liked that book anyway. THIS, this new project, THIS shall be your glory. And you shall finish in ONE MONTH, not like last project, no not the one that took 4 and half years. The agent will love it and you'll be back on sub in 6 weeks. Movie deals will pour in within minutes. MINUTES! YES. Yeeessssssss...
You will never surrender, no matter how much your beta readers hate everything you write nor how long your inbox remaineth empty. For you are writer and writing your sweet sweet crack whore. YOU SHALL PREVAIL.
Hahahahaha... This is brilliant. Especially the stalking part. Hmm...is this what I'm headed for? *cringes and swallows and breathes as deeply as possible without cracking a damn rib* ;-)
ReplyDeleteSadly, I think there's more truth in this than most of us are willing to admit. If the agent doesn't jump on your project immediately, it will probably end up buried in the slush pile as the projects that interest them more keep getting bumped to the top of the pile.
ReplyDeleteWon't stop me from trying though! : )
Hey Christine! For the sake of humanity, I hope my obsessive stalker powers are not typical. Unless...oh my god - do you have a shrine to Anne Hoppe at HarperCollins in your bedroom too?!
ReplyDeleteAw, no Clutzattack! I got a few partial requests a month after I submitted queries. You never know what the agent or editor has on their plate that week, so don't worry about it too much. Query well, query wide, and you'll find someone who loves what you do. Pinky swear.
ReplyDeleteLOL. You've got me rolling on the floor. Wait, you don't really have a camera hidden in my house, do you? I don't refresh my browser like that. *checks for hidden cameras*
ReplyDeleteBa ha ha ha! Your graph is amazing! This whole post is so, so true. I finally got to the point in querying where I can just let it be. That is, until I send out the next batch. Then I'll just go through the cycle again. :)
ReplyDeleteOkay. So you just scared the crap out of me with that submission tale! I'm going on sub soon, and am more terrified now than I was a few minutes ago! lol Just kidding. I am nervous, but if I follow your graph, maybe I'll be okay. Until I get to the kill yourself part... Not sure I'm ready for that! :)
ReplyDeleteOh, GMAIL!
ReplyDeleteBest. Post. Ever. :) The worst part?? It's SO TRUE.
ReplyDeleteOh, man, this is soooo true! Going back on sub (I hope *gulp*) after I turn in this latest rewrite, so it'll probably take me half the time to feel like I want to kill myself. ;)
ReplyDeleteGoing to try to forget about my ms being critted and enjoy the weekend instead!
LOVE this!
ReplyDelete"Despair (Day 3): You realize you don't have to hit the refresh button for gmail to update. Life loses all meaning."
ReplyDeleteI think I just tore an abdominal muscle or eight. Can't... breathe...
I hope I experience this miserable process someday, though! It'll mean I've jumped the agent hurdle. :P
This is great and so true! I love the self-esteem chart graph, but I think I would freak out a little if I had 283 emails in my Gmail account.
ReplyDeleteI am sure this is in some ways even worse than querying agents. Each their own unique hell. Good luck!
ReplyDelete