Blog post fail

Happy Halloween! I'd like to apologize to the family who came trick-or-treating to my door. This is my fourth Halloween in Middle of Nowhere Central Massachusetts and the first year I didn't buy candy. It was also the first year I had trick-or-treaters. 

I was going to post something about feeling like I'm in the twilight of writing, but I've lost it. My two-year-old insists on tickling my feet, and who am I to deny her the pleasure? My post was going to be something about being in between books--the whole I'm-querying-my-novel-and-waiting-to-hear-back-from-an-agent-who's-reading-it-while-trying-to-get-beyond-the-beginning-of-two-other-novels. But it's gone. Post fail.

Now my daughter is playing with a dead lightbulb. I need to rescue said lightbulb before my daughter breaks it.

Still here.

I feel I need to post just to say I'm still here and kicking. I'm here. I'm kicking.

It's also harvest time. I spent the past three days canning applesauce and tomato sauce, making cider, and putting up peppers and beans. Tomorrow is a sauerkraut day.  This is why I haven't updated.

Don't worry. I had help.

There are perks to being a wallflower?

For the longest time, I balked any time someone would call me shy. I still don't think I'm shy. I'm an introvert. Unfortunately, I'm an introvert to the point where it's sometimes socially crippling. Good-meaning people tell me I must practice being social, that the more I socialize with people the better at it I will become. It hasn't happened yet, so I'm beginning to wonder in my over-think-everything way if it's me.

Some things about me:

1.) During social engagements, I usually go to the bathroom for the sole purpose of locking myself behind a door long enough to feel human again. If it's longer, it's usually because I can't breathe. After I leave a party, I need a solid hour alone, preferably in a turn-into-boiled-lobster shower. If I don't, I generally fold into myself. If I'm at a party too long, by the time I get home I'll cry.

2.) People misinterpret my comments as overly educated or snobby. Okay, so maybe I'm a little educated. So maybe I try to speak properly and that comes across as educated or snobby. I don't know. The truth is, I'm so afraid that what I say will be misinterpreted (few understand my jokes) or that what I say will be boring, that I don't say anything. I don't want people to think I think I'm something special. I'm not. I'm just one of billions of people out there. My thoughts aren't unique. Unfortunately, I guess that's snobbery.

3.) By the time I think of something to add to the conversation, the conversation has usually moved on. I have to internalize everything first. If I don't think through my words, I have this horrible tendency to stumble over my words because I can't find the right ones to articulate my thoughts when the pressure's on. Then everyone's staring at me and I can't handle it, and then I get embarrassed and can't remember what words I was looking for until all eyes are off me again.

Sometimes I wish things were a little more like (some) fiction--where the introverted wallflower finds a friend who picks her up and introduces her into the world of fast-moving friendliness, where the conflict comes quickly and is gone overnight.  Not the one where she builds her walls higher and higher, hoping someone will see the mountain and choose to climb.

Rejection and Fantasy

Update on rejection: I received a very nice tweet informing me I should not post about rejection in any form. I understand the concept behind it. Someone might mistakenly believe I don't got the goods ;) if she reads my manuscript has already been rejected. I can't say I like it--writing is a lonely place, and I find solace in blogging about my triumphs and struggles--but I understand it. No more posts about rejection. Cross my heart. :)

On a completely different note, I recently noticed I spend a lot of time dreaming up opening lines to books I'll never write. I don't intend to write them. I just want to write their first lines. It happens in those in-between moments when I'm drifting into sleep or driving to work, times when I'm free to think about nothing. In my "nothing" times, I fantasize about writing. How about that?

On Rejection

I've finally begun querying, and like everyone else who's in this stage, I received my first rejection letter. I thought I'd be more upset about it. But I'm not. Actually, I'm not upset about the rejection at all. Actually, I'm shocked with myself that I'm not bothered by it. Seriously.  When that letter came in my inbox a few nights ago, I had to dig through my mental file cabinets just to make sure I wasn't lying to myself. I'm not. It doesn't bother me. Wow.

I don't know why it doesn't bother me.  Maybe I've done a sufficient job convincing myself that rejection is part of the job, which it is. Maybe it's because I've been turned down through so many writing and pitch contests that I'm beginning to become desensitized to rejection. Maybe it's because it wasn't a form rejection. I'm searching through those file cabinets and I can't pinpoint the reason. Huh.  Go figure.

It's like I almost want to be upset, and I'm trying to find a reason to be upset but can't. This isn't me. I worry. I overthink. I get upset. Except not this time. Who are you, and what have you done to April?

So that was my first response--or lack of response. My second response was: YAY! I mean, how cool is that? I've joined the same club all my favorite authors have joined. And yeah, I'm kind of official now. I'm not just playing around at being a writer anymore. I'm out there, making the make, doing the do.

And so, along with this YAY! was a, how cool is it that, out of all the rejection letters for me to first receive, it wasn't a form rejection? This agent took time out of her busy life to reply to me! Kudos to awesome agent Suzie Townsend. So, you won't be my agent, but that's okay. You rock. You didn't tell me my query letter was crummy. You didn't even tell me that you didn't think my novel wasn't a good fit for you. You told me you didn't think LitD would sell given the current market. And that's cool. You've got to make a living. That is something I can totally respect. So a great big huge sincere thanks. You're awesome. :)

So yeah. I'm overly pleased with this whole thing. It doesn't make sense, but I am.

I'm actually floating on some sort of weird distorted cloud. The cloud should be cliche, because everyone floats on clouds, but it's not because I shouldn't feel this way about rejection.

So yeah. That's all I've got right now.

Don't tell me that character isn't real

It seems there's been a lot of chatter in the blog world about girls. Not too long ago, the lovely Zoe Marriott wrote a post called Real Girls, Fake Girls, Everybody Hates Girls.Then there was the post written by Sophia McDougall called I hate Strong Female Characters, which I'll admit I didn't read in it's entirety, but I especially like the last five or so lines. Veronica Roth, author of my beloved "Divergent," answers the fan question, "Does a YA female protagonist have to be strong?" So this started me thinking.

Then, I read a review about "The 5th Wave" that finally helped me formulate my thoughts. A Goodreads user refers to the novel as "bastardized sci-fi for the Twilight crowd...[with a] cringe worthy young adult 'romance' (which [he] never would have expected from a male author...)." In one sentence, this reviewer refers to MC Cassie as melodramatic, whining, clueless, and naive. 

I'm trying to work my way through this one. First, I didn't find Cassie melodramatic, whining, clueless, or naive. Second, so what if she were? You can't tell me you've never met someone who owned these adjectives? Just because you don't like a character doesn't mean she isn't real.

Granted, I'm unpublished. I don't have an MFA or any other fancy writing-related degree, so I'm really no professional, but I do hate it when people comment on characters in novels and say those characters aren't real. Let's get this straight: there are all types of people out there.

I am a high school teacher. I have taught hundreds of students. So when I say, there are all types of people out there, I mean there are all types of people out there. I'm qualified to say that. Authors, many of us base our characters on people we know or have met.

Which is why I get a little perturbed when people refer to other characters as whining, clueless, naive, melodramatic, fake, stilted, or any other adjective, and they do so in a negative way. Because, hello, there are all types of people out there.

Just because you have never met someone who sings everything, doesn't mean that person isn't out there.* Just because you have never met someone who carefully places her prepositions within her sentences, doesn't mean she isn't out there. Just because you have never met someone who pulls his hair out when he's nervous, doesn't mean he isn't out there.

It's okay if you don't connect with a character, because, let's face it, we don't connect with everyone out there. But please, don't ever tell me a character isn't real. There are a lot of real people out there. And those real people do a lot of strange things. Maybe the character isn't your typical teenage girl. But really, did you pick up that book because you wanted to read the same characters you always read?

*For the record, my second year teaching, I had a student who sang EVERYTHING. From "May I please go to the bathroom? I really need to pee," to "Subtract x from both sides, then divide," she sang it. All. Year. Long.

My Question for you:
I know there are times when you don't connect with a character. What are they?

End-of-summer Update

I'll be off blogging for a little while again. Back to the Appalachian Mountains for me! It's my last crazy hurrah before the school-year begins and I once again teach statistics and algebra to a hundred eager minds.

Just a brief update of what I've been up to.
1.) I entered the Pitch+250 contest over at Adventures in YA Publishing.
2.) I entered the Secret Agent contest over at Miss Snark's First Victim.
3.) There was also the Agent Greeting contest (just for fun) at Michelle4Laughs.
4.) And I've been spending a whole heck of a lot of time at the WriteOnCon forum in preparation for the conference next week.