Home, rejections, submissions and contests.

Paradise.

Yes, as the blog title suggest, I’m home. And in the madness of broken air conditioners, getting ready for school, jet lag and unpacking I’ve barely had time to breathe. But I’ve unpacked, gotten over the jet lag, I have someone coming to look at the air conditioner and The Kid started back at school yesterday. So life it appears, is getting back to normal. Okay, no laughing, I know it’s hard to accept my life as normal when I live in a foreign country and have a maid. I’m not used to that maid thing and we’ve had Melma for almost two years. Still feel like a visitor when I go into my own kitchen. It’s sometimes a little annoying and at other times when I’m caught up in writing and suddenly dinner is ready and on the table it’s definitely NOT annoying. LOL

Rejection. We all get them. Some of us (yes, that would be us writers) are always sticking ourselves out there for it. And more often than not we expect to get but it still slices and dices. Deep. So what do you do? You bleed. You see your friends NOT getting rejected and you think ‘what the hell is wrong with me?’, you contemplate throwing it all out the 11th floor window and whine to you besties and they pull you up by your hair and give a swift kick in the butt. And whe the haze of tears clear and the bleeding stops you go back and look at it again and think ‘yeah, she had a point there’. So you pull that sucker back and go over it again, make some changes, cut some things, add some others before sending it off to the CP’s yet again for their close scrutiny. And when it comes back?????

Submission. Every writer will tell you the most amazing roller coast is sending of a finish story. Once we’ve written it the way we think it should be, had the CP’s take a look and then gone over it again and we’ve reached the point of sending that baby out to the world we’re riding the most crazy roller coast. From one minute to the next we go from up in the clouds to crashing down towards the ground and back up again. At any one moment we can’t predict how we’ll feel about our baby. We’ll think of something that might have worked better in a particular scene, we’ll think the whole thing is crap and should never have left the dark recesses of our minds. And we do all this while checking our inboxes every three seconds. We want to know what that editor thought and we don’t. With each click of that check mail button we cringe, scared there’ll be nothing and even more scared there’ll be something. Because if there is something it means the verdict is in and we have to read what the editor thought. And if it’s good news we scream from the rooftops, happy dance around the room and tell all our closest friends. And if it’s not good? Well, we go back a paragraph and start it all over again.

You might have guessed this week was a little rough for me on a professional level. Yep, another rejection. I’m not counting anymore because I’ve decided they don’t count. I’m only counting the none rejections. But while I’m ignoring the rejections I’m continuing to write and send out other stuff and the ignored stuff. So yesterday after another look at One Night In Bangkok I sent it off to three different publishers. Glutton for punishment you might say but I prefer to look at it this way, I haven’t put my product in the right market place yet. But I will. Even if it means covering the publisher list from A to Z! God I hope it doesn’t take that long.

And in amongst the rejection and submission and the writing and stressing and whatever else I’ve got going on I got nice little pat on the back. The Karin Tabke First Line contestis in full swing and down to 45 entries. AND I’M ONE OF THEM!!!!! Yes, I’m in the 45 left this week. *warning – brag coming* Last year I got down to the final 20 with a story that has since been throw the ringer (see above) and I’m hoping to do at least that this year. You see the story I used this year is one I plan to submit under my real name and is the first of a trilogy that is slowly taking shape. I’m loving these books. They’re entwined and it’s lovely getting to play with characters for so long. Anyway, there’s some really great stories going up there so you should head over to Karin’s blogand check them out. My CP Mari Carr is still in, as is my fellow table dancing tart (long story I’m sure I’ve told before) Sandie Hudson.

Oh, and I forgot to say the photo at the top was taken at the caravan park we have our on-site van at. St. Georges Basin is beautiful but never more so than when it puts on a sunset like this one. Nothing better than sitting back to watch the sun go down after a day of boating and water sports of your choice. What’s my water sport of choice? I like to sit on the grass with a cold drink and watch everyone else risking life and limb. Besides, I’m closer to the phone for when The Kid tries something that requires a ride in an ambulance.

Rhian