Countdown: 14: Submission and Rejection

In 8th grade, my English teacher, Ms. Ada Wax, submitted my name for a young writer's regional conference. I was accepted, and I headed off to the conference with great excitement and anticipation. (This is, by the way, the only writer's conference I've ever been to. How ironic is that?) I met several other young writers and got the address of a publishing house that specialized in publishing books written by young people.

I could hardly wait. I got home, printed out my novel, and mailed it off. I remember how nervous I was, standing in line at the post office. I wanted my mother to come in and stand by me. But she had to take my brother to a soccer game.

I can't remember how long it took to get a response. But I got one. They returned my manuscript with a nice, detailed letter from the editor. He pointed out things he didn't like and invited me to revise and resubmit. I was pumped. I spent the rest of 8th grade and the beginning of 9th grade revising. By now I had mastered typing, which made it easier. My cousins teased me over Thanksgiving because they thought I couldn't tear myself away from my video games. Goofs. I was writing. My dad sat with me on vacation and helped me dissect the novel, chapter by chapter.

I was ready. It was good now. (For then. Ha ha. Seriously, when this is all finished and my publisher says I can, I'll post the first chapter. Then and Now. So you can laugh with me.) I just knew they were going to accept it. I mailed it off, more confident this time, and sat back to wait.

I never heard anything back from them. I waited for months. Nothing. In hindsight, I should've contacted them to see if they'd ever received my manuscript. But I didn't. I got discouraged. I put the whole thing aside and forgot about it. For ten years.

Bom dia!

Yawn. What a perfect Saturday morning. I'm sitting in my bed. My 3-year-old is at my feet, watching "Little Einsteins." My 1-year-old is on the floor playing with his firetruck. It's so nice to be with them. Such wonderful, sweet little people.

We were up late last night. Our extremely patriotic neighbors launched firecrackers until after midnight. Is that even legal??? I let Jacen sleep with me. He was scared. Except he doesn't really sleep. He just kind of...tosses.

So Mark is in the Army and I canceled our dental insurance last month. I checked our bank account yesterday--something I hate doing, b/c I always expect us to be overdrawn!--and they charged us our premium! Well, I about had a tizzy. And it was Friday night and there's nothing I can do about it! I hate that. I'm one of those people who has to take care of it RIGHT NOW, make that phone call and get it resolved RIGHT NOW. Now I have to wait until Monday! Grrr.

I think I'm supposed to make a post in my writer's blog. something intellectual about writing. I spent most of last night rewriting chapter 5 of Branca, my fantasy novel. Turns out Claude's point of view wasn't working for me. Or Evan's. Or Maitle's. Okay, so I had about 50 points of view in this novel. Yikes! I'm learning. I'm a better writer than I was. So I'm cutting it down to four points of view. Maybe five, but probably just four. That's some major rewriting!

Oh, and thanks to Vicky, I joined Twitter. I'm waiting for my fans to flock to me by the dozens now.

If you have a chance, check out my other blog. I share it w/ several other writers, and we are full of good advice for your writing process. http://smblooding.blogspot.com/