It has really been a rollercoaster ride this week. I managed to (dare I say it?) break the 50,000 word mark and finish my Nano book. That was a HUGE relief! Literally within minutes of finishing my Nano book, I got a Fedex. From DAW Books.
For those of you don’t know, I had submitted my first manuscript to DAW back in October. So, with a great deal of trepidation, I opened the package. Yup, there was my manuscript and there was a note from DAW.
Unfortunately, the manuscript wasn’t accepted this time. But you know what? I’m actually OK with it. Yes, I am a bit disappointed, but, after all, it WAS only the first time I had sent it out. I think the biggest disappointment was that they didn’t give me any creative feedback. My suspicion is, they get so many, they can’t possibly do that for them all.
So, on the same day, the same hour in fact, I experience a complete 180 degree turn of emotion. C’est la vie, c’est la guerre. So, what’s next? That’s easy. The manuscript won’t even have time to get cold before I send it out to the next publisher. After all, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure (not that my manuscript is trash in my humble opinion).
And, it means that I’ve already taken the lead in the rejection letter derby 
. To the rest of the SWN cadre, come on guys, get in the game! I hate playing alone.
A few other good things to report from the past Nano week though. I finally made it to one of the gatherings. It was a lot of fun and I’ve made some good new friends. Remember the whole networking thing? Well, this allowed it in spades. Now I’m looking forward to attending the TGIO (Thank God It’s Over) Party on December 1st. It should be fun.
Also (drum roll please), the entire StartingWriteNow team FINALLY met, in the same room, at the same time. Can you believe it? It was awesome to finally meet Rich and Yves. It definitely fit into the “Good Times” section of my life. I hope everyone else felt the same.
And, oh yes, I’ve fleshed out my idea for my next book (the one that’s a sequel to the recently rejected one, no less). My daughter and I were sitting around talking about my stories (yes, I inflict myself on my children… what else are they for?) and I managed to get some brilliant ideas about how to tie some old story ideas into the new one. Did I mention that the idea was brilliant?
I’m really looking forward to getting going on the next book. Call me a glutton for punishment, but I’m genuinely excited to get back into the heads of my characters again. And write an even better story than the first. Oh yeah… and a short story too.
Now I can take more of a cheer leading role for Nano. Go SWN go! We’ve now offically got 2+ complete books in terms of work count and only 3/4’s of the way through the month. Let’s try to add at least another 50K words collectively.
