You Can't Stop The Signal

I end the year much as I began it, waiting and hoping and believing in a manuscript that my writer pals (pubbed and un alike) love, that my agent loves... and now multiple editors have said they love... but without a contract.

On one hand, every trip to the bookstore, every click through Amazon, every blog and message of other writers makes me say, often out loud, THEY are getting contracts, why not me? Now I'm not saying I'm not getting ANY contracts, I still have books for Love Inspired coming out and submissions going out this week, but this single title, this book editors, authors and agents all say is something special? (crickets chirping)

Anyone reading this who has ever tried to do anything creative and get it into the hands of people who might help you reach an audience understands these feelings. For some they spark anger, others sink into a swamp of sadness. Me? Well, I go to my muse, who lives in the land of underappreciated writing - a land populated by the lines from books and TV and Movies that just did not get the respect they deserved and yet remain an endless pool of inspiration. For today's 'sermon', I draw upon the 'text' of Serenity (the awesome movie based on the awesomer TV show Firefly)which IMDB lists Joss Whedon as the sole writer of (really? I should research that more, later)

You can't stop the signal, Mal. Everything goes somewhere, and I go everywhere.

Okay, so I'm not Mr Universe but I have at my disposal the next best thing - the Internet.

I also have a good idea translated into a good story, with strong characters and the skill of years of writing. What I don't have are big single title numbers. Being a word person, I don't 'get' numbers. So this year I have decided numbers don't 'get' me.
I will finish writing Helen Hartman and the Kitchen Counter Revolutionaires and it will become a 'real' book in much the same way the Velveteen Rabbit became a real rabbit... because it's loved and because...
(Take it Mr. Universe)
From here to the eyes and the ears of the 'Verse, that's my motto, or it might be if I start having a motto.

For now, at least, writers don't have to give up when they exhaust all options for traditional or new traditional publishing (which I haven't, yet but am being pre-emptive against that anger, sadness, etc thing) that they don't have to throw their work in a trunk or a trash can. Write, edit, read, edit more, polish and publish - one way or another. If you have something worth sharing, don't let anyone else tell you you can't share it with the 'verse.

Don't let fear of not getting that big break keep you from trying. Don't pressure yourself into rushing into a bad choice for your work. Don't let rejection defeat you. Don't... wait don't be defined by the negative (Hey, wait, isn't don't a negative?)

Better yet -
DO: Finish Your Manuscript
DO: Keep learning, learning from others, learning from failures, learning from successes
DO: Believe in your work enough to make it the best it can be
DO: Write, write, write

No matter what life throws at you, I hope this is a productive, purposeful and prosperous year for you - it will be for me, because...

You can't stop the signal


(BTW Blog that keeps Helen Hartman alive in my mind as I write out the story - http://dearhelenhartman.blogspot.com/)

YOU May Be...

You may be the High Almighty Exalted Queen of The Way You Think Things Should Be but you for sure ain't the High Almighty Exalted Queen of What Is.

There was someone behaving all snotty and superior for no good reason that I wanted to say that to today. Of course, I didn't. I'm polite that way. I won't say a thing that 1)sounds kinda mean and 2)I'd probably have to explain and thereby take the sting out of the indignation of it all right to someone's face like that. But beware. I WILL post it on a blog that can be read by anyone in the world.

Thus is the power of the writer.

Also I liked the way it sounded and didn't want to forget it and didn't have a pen and paper to jot it down. So I used my blog as scrap paper.

Thus is the freedom of the writer who is pretty sure not many people are reading.

Bwahahahaha. Ha... Ha.

Oh and if I had to say that to a male - High Almighty Exalted POTENTATE of... Because King doesn't get it.

THAT is the reality of a writer no matter who is or isn't behaving or reading... you gotta jiggle the words a little until they are right no matter what.

Have a great week and try to keep your perspective, Be the Queen (or Potentate) of what is and make what is as good as you can.

It's my birthday, it's my birthday, uh huh, uh huh...

NOT begging for attention - just saying THANK YOU to the Lord for this year, troublesome and trying though it has been. THANK YOU for all my friends and family. THANK YOU for possibilities. THANK YOU for imagination.

THANK YOU for the amazing gift of having realized the desire of my heart, to write. THANK YOU, THANK YOU for this day and all those that came before it and for the hope of many more to come.

From today through Christmas I have the blessing of writing for the joy of it - I Have a proposal waiting to be sent after Christmas, and can take the next couple weeks to write and polish chapters on the book of my heart ( Check out: http://dearhelenhartman.blogspot.com/). It's a wonderful gift to be able to remember why we write, to hush the editor's voice, to shut out the fears of not being good enough or not finding a publisher, to surrender yourself to the words and characters and settings and dream and to just WRITE.

I Kept Thinking... tomorrow

No I am not going to type out the lyrics to the song from the musical ANNIE that would undoubtedly get stuck in your brain and drive you so crazy you'd start wishing someone would walk by whistling Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer just to give your mind a rest.

I'm just saying that for the last month I kept thinking I'd have big writing news to report. Now there is a saying as cliched as that song about the day two days past yesterday - no news is good news. I have no idea if that applies in this case. But it is very much a part of the writing business and is becoming more and more so as publishing tries to sort itself out. It's crazy making and so often ends in disappointment. Guess that's why so many writers are taking their careers in their own hands and getting their work out there themselves. I love this project so much that I plan to do that if it comes to that, so the waiting is a little more tolerable. BUT I'D REALLY LOVE TO GET A CONTRACT FOR THIS BOOK - it's so special and waiting is so hard.

Meanwhile I will keep writing - though I confess I'd rather be writing on the project in the lurch than in the one that is a better chance of selling. Is that human nature? To want to chase after the one who doesn't seem to know you exist? The one who hints at giving you your heart's desire then falls silent?

Call me human!