I'm going through some sort of midlife crisis in my sleep. I keep dreaming that I'm getting old. I think I'm convinced that life ends when you turn 30.
Besides that, I am both stressed out and at ease when it comes to getting published. I'm stressed out because trying to write a query for my book that people on the writing message board like seems near impossible. Still, I respect their opinion because it's probably similar to the opinion of the agents who will read it, and if I can impress the people on the message board then I might be able to impress an agent.
So this task I'm facing is tricky. At the same time, I feel strangely confident that there is really nothing to worry about and that my book will be published. It wouldn't matter if the people on the message board told me that the subject of my memoir sucked (which they haven't, they've told me it sounds interesting), it wouldn't phase me because of how freaking confident I feel about this.
And I'm wondering where all this confidence came from, if it came from somewhere outside myself. It doesn't matter where it came from right now though, the important thing is that it is the thing that is keeping me from giving up.
I think I might be worried that I'm wasting too much of my life at Innercept.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Monday, September 26, 2011
An Irrational Sort of Hope
So, some stuff has happened in the past week.
As I was logging into my email account last Monday, I remember thinking that today was the day I would receive the response from the literary agent who was reading my book, and I wasn't feeling thrilled. Well it was the day, and it was a form rejection. It took her four months to respond, which might not be a long time for some agents but her average response time seems to be about two months or less. I was expecting at least some helpful criticism, but there was nothing. Just a form rejection. She at least acknowledged that it was a memoir, so it was her form rejection for memoir/nonfiction.
Anyway, it didn't get me down right away. I was still feeling a little cheery, like "time to send out more queries!" I used a new approach: personalizing the query to the agent. I sent out three on Monday. On Tuesday, I checked my email. Two form rejections. This is when I got frustrated. And I cursed the publishing gods and this maddening process of trying to get published. Trying to get published was even more maddening than the time I actually went crazy! I went home and took some zyprexa, as I was overstimulated. I went to sleep.
Wednesday was the day when new hope blossomed inside me. I went back to the writing forum I used to be on. I decided I would post my query there for feedback. But I needed 50 posts before I was permitted to. I just now got 50 posts today, right before I started writing this blog, but it said it might take up to an hour to register that I have 50 posts thus why I am taking a break and writing a blog entry. On Wednesday I remembered that my sister gave me advice about my query. The source of the advice is questionable, by that I mean I don't know if it came from her or from the spirits. See, my sister is more in touch with the spirits, like a hell of a lot more than I am. But I took the advice on this query, and added more to the query I was using. After all, it did get me a full request to begin with, so there must be something right about it. It might be that it's too short.
So I hold onto this hope. And right now all I have is hope. Luckily, all I really need is hope. I thought about it, and there are two things, which together mean I will eventually succeed at this: first off, the spirits have been pushing me to get my book published. Not just me, but my sister too. I was feeling this push earlier this year, but I was skeptical of what I was feeling. Then I talked to my sister, and she said she felt a push to push me to get published. I realized the push was real. And when you believe a feeling is real, that makes the feeling stronger, or so I've learned through experience. But anyway, that's the first thing, which in itself doesn't mean I will be published, but what it does mean is that the spirits know that I have the ability to succeed at this. The second thing is that I have honestly been doing the best I know how to do. I have been giving it my best effort, and I know the spirits wouldn't expect me to do any better than that. Therefore, I will succeed.
As I was logging into my email account last Monday, I remember thinking that today was the day I would receive the response from the literary agent who was reading my book, and I wasn't feeling thrilled. Well it was the day, and it was a form rejection. It took her four months to respond, which might not be a long time for some agents but her average response time seems to be about two months or less. I was expecting at least some helpful criticism, but there was nothing. Just a form rejection. She at least acknowledged that it was a memoir, so it was her form rejection for memoir/nonfiction.
Anyway, it didn't get me down right away. I was still feeling a little cheery, like "time to send out more queries!" I used a new approach: personalizing the query to the agent. I sent out three on Monday. On Tuesday, I checked my email. Two form rejections. This is when I got frustrated. And I cursed the publishing gods and this maddening process of trying to get published. Trying to get published was even more maddening than the time I actually went crazy! I went home and took some zyprexa, as I was overstimulated. I went to sleep.
Wednesday was the day when new hope blossomed inside me. I went back to the writing forum I used to be on. I decided I would post my query there for feedback. But I needed 50 posts before I was permitted to. I just now got 50 posts today, right before I started writing this blog, but it said it might take up to an hour to register that I have 50 posts thus why I am taking a break and writing a blog entry. On Wednesday I remembered that my sister gave me advice about my query. The source of the advice is questionable, by that I mean I don't know if it came from her or from the spirits. See, my sister is more in touch with the spirits, like a hell of a lot more than I am. But I took the advice on this query, and added more to the query I was using. After all, it did get me a full request to begin with, so there must be something right about it. It might be that it's too short.
So I hold onto this hope. And right now all I have is hope. Luckily, all I really need is hope. I thought about it, and there are two things, which together mean I will eventually succeed at this: first off, the spirits have been pushing me to get my book published. Not just me, but my sister too. I was feeling this push earlier this year, but I was skeptical of what I was feeling. Then I talked to my sister, and she said she felt a push to push me to get published. I realized the push was real. And when you believe a feeling is real, that makes the feeling stronger, or so I've learned through experience. But anyway, that's the first thing, which in itself doesn't mean I will be published, but what it does mean is that the spirits know that I have the ability to succeed at this. The second thing is that I have honestly been doing the best I know how to do. I have been giving it my best effort, and I know the spirits wouldn't expect me to do any better than that. Therefore, I will succeed.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Shifting Energy
So it's happening again. I feel my personal energy shifting, and I feel like certain things are going to happen. If I told someone at Innercept about this, they would probably thing I was referring to petty matters like moving into aftercare. Yes, that's going to happen but that's not what this energy shift is about.
Energy shifts are easiest to identify by paying attention to what kind of music you feel like listening to. At least, that's how it works for me. I use music to enhance my mood. When I want to enhance my mood, I face the challenge of having to pick the right song from my iPod. Sometimes I get it right, and I say silently to myself that I made a good choice. Sometimes I pick wrong, and I either listen anyway or pick a different song. Sometimes I get frustrated and give up, I turn off my iPod and remove my headphones from my ears and let them hang around my neck.
The song Unwrittten by Natasha Bedingfield is a meaningful song to me. It's a song about being inspired and writing. People who know I wrote a book would probably think that the reason it is meaningful to me is because I'm a writer, but that's actually not the reason. Rather, it's because of an event that's in my book, where I had to write a livejournal entry. I feel that Natasha Bedingfield wrote this song about me. This song was also making its rotation on the radio during the same period of time that I wrote the livejournal entry, which was during the early months of the year 2006.
I have my set of songs I listen to when I feel like I am the messiah, and then I have the set of songs which remind me of events from my book. Lately I've been listening to the book set, not the messiah set. When I listen to the messiah set now, it makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. I've also been listening to a lot of cheery music, mostly by female artists.
But music choices aside, I remain frustrated by how long this is taking. Of course, that's what you have to deal with when you're a writer: the publishing process is painfully slow. The life of an agent or publisher is very busy.
I think very highly of the content of my book. Not because of the writing itself, though I've been told the writing is book. But I can vividly imagine this book becoming popular. I imagine it being turned into a movie, only the movie would be about how it would be if my delusions were actually true, so it wouldn't be about a delusional girl but rather about a girl who was the messiah. And most of all, I imagine people making fun of it. But I don't mean that in a bad way, actually it's a good thing. I imagine things from my book becoming overused and cliche.
Energy shifts are easiest to identify by paying attention to what kind of music you feel like listening to. At least, that's how it works for me. I use music to enhance my mood. When I want to enhance my mood, I face the challenge of having to pick the right song from my iPod. Sometimes I get it right, and I say silently to myself that I made a good choice. Sometimes I pick wrong, and I either listen anyway or pick a different song. Sometimes I get frustrated and give up, I turn off my iPod and remove my headphones from my ears and let them hang around my neck.
The song Unwrittten by Natasha Bedingfield is a meaningful song to me. It's a song about being inspired and writing. People who know I wrote a book would probably think that the reason it is meaningful to me is because I'm a writer, but that's actually not the reason. Rather, it's because of an event that's in my book, where I had to write a livejournal entry. I feel that Natasha Bedingfield wrote this song about me. This song was also making its rotation on the radio during the same period of time that I wrote the livejournal entry, which was during the early months of the year 2006.
I have my set of songs I listen to when I feel like I am the messiah, and then I have the set of songs which remind me of events from my book. Lately I've been listening to the book set, not the messiah set. When I listen to the messiah set now, it makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. I've also been listening to a lot of cheery music, mostly by female artists.
But music choices aside, I remain frustrated by how long this is taking. Of course, that's what you have to deal with when you're a writer: the publishing process is painfully slow. The life of an agent or publisher is very busy.
I think very highly of the content of my book. Not because of the writing itself, though I've been told the writing is book. But I can vividly imagine this book becoming popular. I imagine it being turned into a movie, only the movie would be about how it would be if my delusions were actually true, so it wouldn't be about a delusional girl but rather about a girl who was the messiah. And most of all, I imagine people making fun of it. But I don't mean that in a bad way, actually it's a good thing. I imagine things from my book becoming overused and cliche.
Friday, September 9, 2011
Old and New Energies
So I don't live in my apartment yet but I wish I did. Innercept has been jerking me around. I went there yesterday though.
I wanted a double papasan chair. It would be for cuddling. My parents bought me a broken one at a garage sale that they plan on fixing. Right now there is a red double papasan cushion sitting in my apartment where the chair will eventually be. I'm broken when it comes to romantic relationships.
There is random stuff from college sitting around. A cushion that was in my dorm that I didn't use for anything, but I like for some reason. It doesn't match the decor, but for some reason I think it does. But it doesn't.
I have the desk chair I used in college, a cheap one that has history. I remember people who sat in the chair. I remember things that happened when I was sitting in the chair. I'm very sentimental. These thoughts struck me when I was with my mentor and I felt sad.
I have the Rubik's cube I solved at college, right before I became delusional. The solving of the Rubik's cube was symbolic in my delusional world, but in real life I'm not sure what it symbolizes. I have the blue water flippy toy I used as inspiration for my book cover idea.
I have a vase with red sticks that I brought from my room at home. I'm not sure what energy this brings to my apartment. I have a fern that my mom gave me which I named Farrah. I have other stuff too, obviously.
All this stuff sits in my apartment, even though I don't. And the energies combine, and they are creating my new life.
I wanted a double papasan chair. It would be for cuddling. My parents bought me a broken one at a garage sale that they plan on fixing. Right now there is a red double papasan cushion sitting in my apartment where the chair will eventually be. I'm broken when it comes to romantic relationships.
There is random stuff from college sitting around. A cushion that was in my dorm that I didn't use for anything, but I like for some reason. It doesn't match the decor, but for some reason I think it does. But it doesn't.
I have the desk chair I used in college, a cheap one that has history. I remember people who sat in the chair. I remember things that happened when I was sitting in the chair. I'm very sentimental. These thoughts struck me when I was with my mentor and I felt sad.
I have the Rubik's cube I solved at college, right before I became delusional. The solving of the Rubik's cube was symbolic in my delusional world, but in real life I'm not sure what it symbolizes. I have the blue water flippy toy I used as inspiration for my book cover idea.
I have a vase with red sticks that I brought from my room at home. I'm not sure what energy this brings to my apartment. I have a fern that my mom gave me which I named Farrah. I have other stuff too, obviously.
All this stuff sits in my apartment, even though I don't. And the energies combine, and they are creating my new life.
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