Wednesday 11 May 2011

Little Bit of Win, Little Bit of Fail

I've been going a little bit online-ordering-happy lately (this is what happens to me when I'm broke: for some reason, my inner consumer awakes and starts feverishly justifying all kinds of purchases. Perhaps I need an exorcist?) so the package that arrived at my door today didn't overly fill me with any kind of thrills or giddiness, besides the vague delight at the prospect of receiving Leonard Nimoy's autobiography. Yes, that's right. I love me some Nimoy. I am an unrepentant fangirl.

So, imagine the flailing that was done when I opened the package to find.... My latest printed word! It's a book review that I submitted to a (self-promotion alert) very prestigious academic journal this time last year, and it's made it into print! Nothing will ever dull this feeling, I am privately convinced. Every time I see something I wrote, out there for general consumption, it feels a little bit like flying. I am sick with excitement. I am jubilant. I am rapturous.

In other news, though, I got a rejection from the magazine to which I submitted my short story a few weeks ago. It was a bit of a blow. Never mind that I was fairly sure it wouldn't be their thing (it's science fictiony-ish, but they are out-and-out science fiction, and I didn't think it would wash. It didn't) it was still a bad moment. This comes at a point where I'm physically (and occasionally violently) forcing myself to Sit The Hell Down and Look The Hell For Some Agents, so now would really be the time to work on developing that thick skin you always hear that you need, but... yeah. It would be very easy to use this as an excuse to not try at all. Fortunately, I'm just far enough into my thirties to be horrified at my lack of progress in the novel-publishing business and have spent enough time in my head to be able to reliably call myself on my own bulls***. Plus, while I'm looking for agents, I'm not working on thesis rewrites. To be honest, I would imagine that's what really did the trick...

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