In Query Limbo... and the Passion in My Bones.

Argh.  I really am awful at this.  Consistency.  Well, at least not where the writing is concerned.  I guess I'd rather produce more novel-wise than blog-wise at any rate, but still!

Okay updates:

I am querying Paper Dreams currently and I have 4 agents who are reading either fulls (2) or partials (2).  One of those agents was speaking with me back and forth over a series of emails rather candidly and making recommendations to improve the book.  She also told me outright that she liked me and my story.  So that was a major "woohoo" moment for me.  I did the suggested revisions she asked for on the first 3 chapters and sent them back to her.  More waiting.  Such is the profession.

One of those fulls was requested a month ago as of Wednesday.  Which means I should hear yay or nay in the next month likely.  It is very difficult to be patient, but the fact that I have so many bites makes me feel very validated.  It is such an amazing feeling to have someone who works in the industry, who makes their living from it, actually take your work seriously.  To request more of it, to speak candidly with you about it.  It feels like I'm doing something right--like I'm on the right path and if I just keep working at it, sometime, sooner or later, something will give.  I will see my name on the spine of a real live (yes, I know they're inanimate objects) book.  Maybe even get to see it on a shelf somewhere or a pretty display stand.

This is part of the reason I shudder at the prospect of self-publishing.  Not because some people haven't been very resourceful and fortunate, doing remarkably well.  Many have.  Not because I'm lazy and would rather the publisher do all the formatting.  No, I do not want to self-pub because something in me tells me that it's like admitting defeat.  That if I self-publish, it is because I couldn't work hard enough or commit long enough to really refining, pushing, stretching, revising and all out improving my book enough to get someone professional in the industry to believe in it.

Sometimes it's difficult because most people do not consider writing (unless maybe journalism?) to be a worthwhile pursuit and certainly not a viable career.  I still have trouble thinking of myself as an "author".  It just sounds so professional and successful.  Writer is that comfortable zone where I can pretend it's something I dabble with, not something I hope to make a career out of.  And maybe it isn't viable--maybe I'll never make enough money off it to live like a person doing a "normal" job could.  But what I will accomplish is a knowledge that I followed the passion in my bones.

At the end of the day, when I've written a scene I like, or I meet a new character in my head that fascinates me, or I find a way to explore a theme near and dear to my heart, I feel a high like no other.  I feel like I'm floating, like I'm bubbling up and spilling over with nothing but good wishes and joy to share with the rest of humanity.  In short, I feel like I'm accomplishing what I was made for, what I was created for--to find a turn of phrase or mirror a portion of life that actually resonates with other souls. I feel like this is what God made me to do.

When I've had a hard day--relationships rocky all around me, or the dinos banging pots and pans and spilling juice all over the floor, or I've just worked myself into exhaustion physically--I turn to my laptop, fire up my current WIP, and let myself daydream.  I let people and places and fantasy speak to me.  The everyday melts away in the face of the fantastical, in the interactive movie that I myself am creating to suit my favorite subjects.  It is a wonderful experience.

The marketing side of it isn't always so glamorous, but it is important, and rather interesting.  I told my husband more than once that if I hadn't fallen so madly in love with him and had 2 beautiful children, I would have whisked myself off to New York city to become an agent or editor.  I love the whole process of books that much.  From the idea, to the draft, to the query, to the agent's pitch, to the physical (and now digital) page of a real, finished book.  All of it is just part of something I love.

In other news, my dinos are becoming quite reliant on getting their naptime/bedtime stories.  I see them picking up books all the time and my heart does flip flops.  I pray that I can still a love of the written word in them, that they'll discover and daydream, learn and question, criticize and wonder all about the thing they'll read on the page.

That is a very worthwhile legacy to pass down to them, if nothing else.

But a part of me still wants to see them curled up on the couch one wintery afternoon, sipping tea, and choosing to read one of my YA novels instead of going to the mall with their friends.  That would feel incredible.