Not Good News, Part 1

When I sent off my manuscript, I knew there were a small list of options on the other end of the mailbox:

1. This is the great American novel, I'm sure this will be sold by the end of the day.
2. This needs work, but I can sell it.
3. This is awful; why on Earth did you send it to me?

Turns out there is an option 4: This is good, but I don't think I can sell it.

So while it's not good news, it's not bad news. Rather - I've heard worse.
The manuscript is still in one other person's hands - the 2nd person who asked for it. If that becomes Not Good News, Part 2, then I'll begin the official agent search. But until then, I'll continue to be hopeful.

Steph

What Happens in Brooklyn

Apparently stays in Brooklyn....as did my manuscript...for over a week...in a Brooklyn post office. All is well now - and things are where they belong. Well, my book isn't published and on a bookshelf, so not COMPLETELY where they belong, just yet. But at least we're a little bit closer.

But Where Is It?

The novel LEFT the building, but it has yet to arrive at its destination. I sent it priority mail on Thursday - by Wednesday p.m. it still wasn't anywhere? Was I smart enough to do package tracking? Of course not. Argh! Deep breaths. USPS, don't let me down!

The Novel Has Left the Building

I live in fear of jinxing the Publishing Gods, so I don't want to anger them by revealing too much but suffice it to say that the manuscript is in the hands of the USPS who will soon deliver it into the hands of people who could, if so inclined, help me get it published.
So burn a candle, dance in a circle, cross all your appendages, do whatever works for you. I, for one, will continue to hyperventilate (and to Mary's great glee, will finally clean out my office!) Hopefully I'll have good news to report soon. (And FYI - in my world of blogging and just to warn ya: no news is bad news.)
SLWL

Meta-TV

I'm a big fan of "meta" anything. For some writing project down the road, I'd really like to incorporate this idea (or is it a method? Not sure.) The project I'm working on now (soon to be finished with!) is a very straight forward narrative, but you know, a girl can dream.
I'm also a big fan of plot. I'm not very good at it, but I do enjoy a good one when I see one.
For both those reasons, How I Met Your Mother is probably my favorite show on tv - it is very well plotted, with extensive and detailed backstories created for each character, and it's becoming more and more meta, using the internet.
For example, whenever a character shouts out a website address on the show, it turns out there is an actual website at that domain. This week, Lily and Marshall (two characters from the show, played by Buffy vet Alyson Hannigan and Freaks and Geeks vet Jason Segel) have to sell their things to raise money, Marshall sets up a website called www.lilyandmarshallselltheirstuff.com. Lo and behold, it's a real website, and you can really buy things from there. That's called "using the 21st century to your advantage." I think it's brilliant.
Another one is www.tedmosbyisajerk.com - and if you, for some insane reason, stumbled upon this site on your own, you would never even know that it came from the same show. Someone even wrote a Ted Mosby is a Jerk song (it's got some rage).
Anyway, I'm assuming some people find this sort of self-referential stuff pretentious - but I think it's kind of a breaking down of a fourth wall in print. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

April Showers

Well, not really showers because we're still pretty droughty.
In other droughts, my string of acceptances has been followed by a string of rejections.
Guess that's the way it goes.
I still have a few things out, and another prose poem that has been accepted to come out in Spring in the next Sentence (although I have not had an update on that in a while.)
I'm almost done with the revisions of the novel and hope to have that into the hands of the waiting and hopefully accepting agent very shortly.
Of course, if I was working on the novel right now instead of adding things to my blog, it might go a little faster, eh?

Beware the Ides of March

Unfortunately, I’m a little prophetic. The first post on this blog was a poem by Sharon Olds about her son’s broken arm. She named her son Gabriel, and her poetry made me want to name my son Gabriel too. I didn’t, but my boy and Gabriel have that broken arm in common.

It’s an old story: birthday party, trampoline, boy who watched his sister effectively jump feet first off a trampoline and thought he could do it too, even though there were a zillion adults standing right there to help him.

I heard the cry and ran at warp speed. The fact that I didn’t throw up when I saw him was the first of many small miracles of the day – his arm looked like Harry Potter’s did when it went boneless after his Quidditch match.

Ice pack, leave the girls at the birthday party, and an eternal, ten minute ride to the hospital in the backseat of a truck driven by the birthday girl’s dad, all the while trying to talk to the boy to make sure he stayed awake – my expired first aid skills kept saying “he might go into shock.” Or perhaps I was in shock – can’t be sure.

We were ushered right into the pediatric ER and as we were sitting on a bench in the waiting room, a doctor sauntered in. I lifted up the ice pack to show him Buddy’s arm. He nodded, “Why don’t you come right in and skip triage?”

“Great idea,” I said.

Within seconds, my boy had morphine, which made us both feel better. He said, “Remember how bad my arm when we were at the party? It hurts less now.”

At one point, I asked Buddy if he needed anything – we all know I was willing to offer anything: end of genocide in Darfur or a million ice cream cones. He smiled, and sang “All I Need is Love.” You have to love a kid who quotes the Beatles in times of stress.

Once Mary showed up, I was able to relax a little - and Buddy was happier too. And she brought a DVD player, which was a stroke of genius.

It was clear that he would need some sort of assistance getting the arm straightened – of course, not an exaggerator at all, I was picturing open arm surgery and a million pins.

Turns out, I didn’t go to medical school. What he needed was a reduction – which is a lot more disgusting than its banal sounding name. It’s kind of like something that would happen on Alias, except it’s not Jennifer Garner yanking bones back in place, it’s your kid; and the sounds of bones snapping back in place are not special effects added in later, it’s your kid. But it was over in ten seconds, thankfully.

Watching your five year old come off of Vercet and another drug whose name I can’t remember is quite amusing. He sang the days of the week Jack Black style and was mesmerized by the sea animal art all over the walls.

When he finally came to, he was starving, of course. Our boy has a master metabolism and not being able to eat during the stay (he needed an empty stomach for the reduction) was probably the worst part of the whole day.

So he’s home and slinged – he’ll get a hard cast in a few days when the swelling goes down. And at the moment, he’s wearing a blue shirt.