What if everyone rejects me?

So I have twenty-six queries out right now. No, twenty-five, because I got a same-day rejection yesterday -- same day service! I'm going to stop querying for a while (I have close to 45 left to send) to see what happens with this.

I have to remind myself that there are several reasons why queries get rejected that have nothing to do with the quality of my book: 

• The topic of my book isn't "hot" right now
• The agent only has one slot left in their list and they know exactly what they want to put in it and it's not my book
• My query didn't "speak" to them or they didn't "feel" it (literal rejections I've gotten)
• The agent had a bad day (I'm not kidding)
• There's a lot, a LOT more queries coming in than there are books being sold in traditional publishing

So I'm left with that question, always: What do I do if I get 25 more rejections?

I send the rest. 

And if I don't get an agent then, I tweak things and try again. And remind myself that the agents are rejecting my query, not me.

Revving the treadmill engine

I guess I got tired of that idyllic end of summer crap, because I've sent twenty queries over the past couple of days. 

That's twenty chances for rejection, I know. That's also twenty chances for requests for manuscripts. That's twenty chances for someone to share my query with another agent in the agency. Twenty more agents who know my name.

No, I'm not always as optimistic as I sound. It's just that my hedonic treadmill, the constant state of moving up and down from our hedonic set point , really gets revving up when presented with possibilities. 

So I have to get more queries out there to rev my treadmill engine, and so I'll be writing those up until I work New York Hope as moulage crew and then start my semester. 

In the meantime, I dream of someday having a book release party. Locally, where I'm with the people I know. Cake and coffee and punch. What quirky things do you think should happen at a book party? Humor me.

Making things happen

Yesterday, I sent a few queries out for Archetype. I was going to wait, but I felt like it was time. I like having queries out, because it makes me feel like something good could happen. 

The strange thing is that I'm not feeling that burning feeling to get something published lately. Maybe because I have gotten published (or will be anyhow) -- my short essay in A3. Or because I'm feeling the season slip into autumn and classes. Or because I'm used to getting rejections. Or because my feelings have nothing to do with how well-received my letter is if I wrote my letter well. 

I am really motivated to send out queries these last couple days. I'm trying to pace myself, though, because I'm always afraid I will become manic. 

The Hedonic set point

So, yesterday's introspection left me at an interesting place. I'm considering a concept I teach in positive psychology called the hedonic set point. The concept is backed by research, so it's not new age hoo-ha.

The theory goes like this: whenever something good happens to us, we feel great for a while, but then we get used to that feeling and it fades until we're back at our set point. When something bad happens to us, we feel bad for a while, but then we start feeling less bad and then it fades until we get back to our set point. 

So, if I get rejected, and I don't beat myself up over it, I will feel better eventually. If I beat myself up over it, I generate bad feelings and will feel bad for longer. But I will find myself once again at the set point.

Conversely, if I get accepted (for my manuscript or by an agent), I will feel great for a while, and may try to make the feeling last longer by celebrating and telling all my friends, but I will eventually fall back to the set point. 

In other words, it's folly to look at happy-making moments in order to become happy. In a lifespan, major achievements don't reset our hedonic set point.

What does reset our set point higher?

• Practicing gratitude
• Significant relationships (friendship, family, intimate)
• Building self esteem = success/hopes and expectations
• Giving back to community
• Regular meditation

So, given that, there is one thing about getting published that could permanently put my set point higher and that is building self-esteem. I get that. 

Building self-esteem can be done in two ways: More success and modest hopes and expectations.*  I'm working on it.

* My fantasy of getting published is pretty modest. In it, I have to find an entertainment lawyer, look over a contract, argue the contract, go through all those intermediate steps that might take a year or four, have a modestly attended book party, travel a few places on my money, and make less than $40k. None of my friends will be particularly excited. My university will not count it as academic achievement. I'm okay with this. 

Enough

No signs of outward success will be enough. I think every writer falls into it: 

• We want an agent
• Then we want a publisher
• Then we wish we'd gotten a better publisher
• People who self-publish wish they'd gone traditional
• People published with traditional publishers wish they'd sold more copies

On the other hand, it's human nature to want to improve, and how can we tell we've improved? By external validation. We recognize that "I think it's great" has its limitations as proof of success. We want experts to say we've improved. 

I know I'm in this "not good enough" cycle. I have gotten compliments on my writing. I got runner-up in one publisher's writing contest and first place in a small journal's essay contest. And that's within less than two months of sending my short stuff out. I've gotten many more rejections, and for once I'm not counting the rejections, so that's progress. But I'm starting to belittle what I've gotten as "not enough". 

I think the key is to not belittle those successes as "not enough", but to push forward. And this includes doing anything I can do to get better. Maybe I could count getting through dev edits, peer critiques, and beta readers as success. 

PS: I just discovered how to do emojis on 😁😂💖Windows! 

Days Pass Slowly

One day feels much like another lately; the heat keeps me from doing much outside and nothing's going on inside. I'm waiting to hear from an agent, a publisher, and a journal, and that status doesn't seem like it will ever change. I don't feel very inspired or very optimistic, so I feel little drive to write or revise. 

Times like these, I try to cling onto the belief that I'm a writer. I dream of being published, at least in part because I fantasize about being able to say "Hey, I'm a published author!" The likely reaction from people will be an anticlimactic, "That's nice." But it's a little kid fantasy, an "I'll show you!" Not very impressive.

Maybe this lapse in writing is good for me, although it does feel like an eroding of my identity. (Why my identity as a professor is not enough puzzles me, but there it is.) 

So I wait for something to happen.

Summer's End

My summer's winding down. This might be the reason I feel so lazy right now, knowing that in less than a month I will be back to work. 

I work as an associate professor at Northwest Missouri State University. I don't know how professors are regarded in Europe (where some of my more regular readers reside), but in the US they're widely regarded as suspicious characters who subject their students to arcane knowledge such as how to think critically and use unbiased data to draw conclusions from. 

I have one last hurrah before I go back to work (which has the added bonus of keeping me out of beginning of semester meetings) -- my annual gig at New York Hope moulaging. This also includes train travel with a sleeper car and hanging out to write in the Metropolitan Lounge in Chicago's Union Station (waiting for my connector train). 

But I have a couple weeks before then, working on classes before the semester starts and writing (I need motivation!) and resting before things get crazy.

Extended Metaphor

When I write the first draft of a story, I feel like I'm in the middle of a budding romance. I fall in love with the characters and I want to see what happens to them. The revelation of the story surprises and delights me.  

And then there's editing. I re-read and find all my characters' flaws showing in the unfiltered morning light. I find holes in their stories, having heard them so many times.

But like any good relationship, my job is to look into the flaws and the errors and the mess and find the truth, the uniqueness of their story. But to do this well, I have to remember that theirs is the same story I fell in love with.

Wish me good happy things

Well, I got a rejection in a short story contest, but it's not bothering me too much. I didn't even get honorable mention. I think they were looking for literary fiction, which is high concept fiction that doesn't touch genres. I write genre fiction, specifically science fiction/fantasy. I may need to be a little more specific as to who I send to. 

I'm pushing myself to go drink coffee and write at the Game Cafe. I don't think I've been there in two weeks, and that might be part of the reason why I've been having trouble motivating. When I'm feeling down, the closer I am to my bed, the harder it is to motivate. 

My choices on projects are either: 1) keep revising on Gaia's Hands or 2) keep writing on Hands (No, not at all confusing), the origin story for Grzegorz Koslowski (apologies to Polish readers; I can't get that little mark through the l to work). I might feel motivated enough to go through Gaia's Hands today. 

Wish me luck and motivations and good happy things. I still have a couple submissions out there and one query to an agent. 

Slump

Oh, I really need to get out of this slump!

It's like I've forgotten I'm a writer, and all I want to do is nap all day. That sounds like depression to me, but I don't feel depressed. Just tired, and relaxed, and totally meh.

This, I remind myself, is not who I want to be. I want to be a writer. I want to get a novel published, and maybe some short stories. I have two short stories and a novel (still Prodigies at DAW) out there, and a third short-short that should be announced any day now (I doubt I've won that one, but maybe I'm a runner-up?) 

I'm wondering if winning the short essay contest at A3 has satisfied my desire to get published. I'm wondering where my drive to go further has gone. I'm wondering if I need a change of scenery, but the cafe is closed today. 

I'll push myself to write today, but maybe a bit later. 

Some Days It's Hard

It's Sunday morning here in Maryville, on a dark morning following a torrential thunderstorm, with more rain on the way. I'm listening to classical music and drinking entirely too much coffee, followed by a good dose of King's Oolong Tea 913, which I received from a friend of mine who's currently back in China. No need to go out; just a long amount of time to do something.

Or nothing. Right now, I want to do nothing.

I took a break from writing yesterday, mostly because I didn't feel well, but in part because my projects are as follows:

1. Gaia's Hands, which is frustrating me because I can't get a handle for improving it (this vastly rewritten and rewritten story)
2. A short story about one of the characters in Prodigies, which starts with a whole family dying in a bombing and gets more depressing from there.

Not much to grab onto, is there? 

My worry if I take another break is that I will quit writing, because, frankly, it's easier not to write. Part of the reason I write this blog is to force myself to be productive, to take the hard path, the path I really want to see myself walk down. 

So we'll see what I want to write today.

Thanks for listening!

Still I write

This is one of those days I have to force myself to write.

It's Friday, I don't have anything I have to leave the house for today, it's going to be 94 degrees (F; 34.5 degrees C) out, I'm wrestling with Gaia's Hands, have no ideas for a new short story ...

And I'm feeling a little down. I'm wondering if there's such a thing as micromood swings, or if it's just the heat getting to me. I'm not depressed or anything; just not feeling like I'm on the verge of something wonderful happening. 

But still I write. And that's the important thing, to write even when it feels like the last thing I want to do. Just a small amount will do -- just a blog post, just an hour. Just a submission. Just a moment of creation.

Neither my feelings of defeat nor my feelings of impending success actually presage the future; they are simply extrapolations of feelings that may be influenced by my strange chemistry. My actions, however, are what's important. Without stepping forward, I have no chance of success.

The County Fair

This morning, it's 81 degrees (Fahrenheit; 27.2 Celsius) at 5 AM and it's going to be 100 degrees F (37.8 C) with heat indexes of 105-110 F (40-43 Celsius). I don't know if this is global warming, because it seems to always be this hot for the county fair. 

County fairs are for kids. Their agricultural/homemaking roots still linger in many of the events -- livestock and 4-H project judging, photography and quilt competitions. A carnival blocks off the main street, with a midway and luridly decorated rides. Fair food consists of funnel cakes, fried oreos, and bratwurst.

Children come for the rides; high schoolers wander in packs to see and be seen in their purple hair and tank tops. Adults shepherd the children or come for the country music and their children participating in the Young Miss/Mr. Maryville competition. Girls in matching spangled outfits perform choreographed jazz dance on the stage.

I walk around the fair feeling like an outsider, even as I know some of the people I see. I didn't grow up on a farm. I don't identify with country music. I don't have children. I wonder, not for the first time, where my place is.

Interrogating Josh Young again

Josh slipped into the seat across from me, looking fey with his slight frame and mischievious smile. "You were looking for me?"

“Josh, how do you feel about Jeanne?” I ask, knowing that I would catch Josh off-guard.

“Oh, boy,” Josh said, taking a deep breath. “I don’t want you telling me she’s old enough to be my mother, or she’s out of my league, or that I have the rest of my life to find someone. I’ve heard all those already, and I haven’t even told my mom about Jeanne yet.” Josh pushed straight black hair out of his almond-shaped brown eyes.

“Ok,” I smiled. “No advice. I just want to know for the sake of this story.”

“Jeanne’s the one. That’s it. No matter what people argue, I know she’s the one I want to marry.” 

“This isn’t just ‘I want to go out with Jeanne, then,” I noted. You’re serious about her. How can you be so certain?”

“At my age?” Josh raises his eyebrows.

I slump in my seat, abashed, because that was exactly what I was thinking.

“What does it mean when you’re certain of something? Does it mean you can read the future? Or that you’re deluding yourself? We never know until it shakes out. My age or my lack of experience doesn’t make that any different than for anyone else.” I definitely had the disadvantage in this debate.

“What if you’re not the one for Jeanne?”

“It’s entirely possible I’m not. But if I don’t end up with Jeanne and I find someone else, I will always remember that she’s not Jeanne.” He squinted and looked in the distance; I wondered if he tried to see that reality.

“Are you attracted to Jeanne?” I venture timidly.

“I am. And you’re surprised, because everything you’ve been told suggests that would never happen. We’re both writers, and we both have active imaginations. Do you really believe in a world where younger men are never attracted to older women? Wouldn’t that world be poorer for it not happening?”

“Yes, it would,” I admitted.

a

Platelets

So I'm hopefully giving platelets today.

The process behind giving platelets involves doing nothing for two hours while having a needle in one's arm. You sit in the most comfortable lounge couch with warm blankets and pads and a tv screen in front of you.

I've gotten pretty good at surfing the internet one-handed on my phone, and the only tv I ever watch is during these sessions. 

Sometimes I meditate, because it's pretty quiet in there. Sometimes I watch with wonder as the machine works its magic and seperates the platelets from blood and plasma and gives me back those fluids. 

It's not two hours wasted. It's a two-hour break from my mind, which always wants to be busy. And I may be saving someone's life. 

Interrogating Jeanne again

I went back and had another conversation with Jeanne because I'm having trouble getting over the age difference:

“Jeanne, how do you feel about Josh?” I sipped my cup of coffee.

“You mean how should I feel about him, or how do I feel about him?” Jeanne looked at me, woman to woman, simpatico. Both of us wore summer clothes, and only those who knew us would recognize us as highly educated women.

“I need to know how you feel about him if I’m going to write this correctly.”

“He’s an impossibility. I’ve studied sociobiology, and everything I learned tells me that there’s no possibility our relationship should exist. I’m not of childbearing age, so he shouldn’t be attracted to me. He’s not a provider type – “

“Do you know that?” I asked.

“Guilty as charged. Let’s just say he’s a writer, and you should know by now that he’s never going to be rich.” Jeanne chuckled and set her cup down. “If the whole purpose of the human race is to provide another generation of humans …”

“But you don’t believe that,” I challenged Jeanne.

“First,” she emphasized, “I think sociobiology is garbage. The same sociobiologists who assume that the sole purpose of life is procreation assume all human enterprise – travel, art, architecture – exists so that the male of the species can attract the attention of a bed partner."

“And you’re not waiting for some guy to write a sonnet for you.”

“Oh, God,” Jeanne lamented. “I’d love it if Josh wrote a sonnet for me. How far gone am I?”

“You tell me,” I grinned.

“As I said, Josh is impossible. He made the first move; did I tell you that? I’m sitting there with my computer, and suddenly, I look up and there’s Josh sitting across from me. With this grin and the hair falling in his eyes. I shouldn’t think this, but –"

“But?”

“I’ve never gone for the traditional. If I wanted a scientist, I’ve been surrounded by them for years. None of them have ever agreed with me – what a statement; they didn’t interest me, especially when they did the ‘Howdy little lady' thing and told me why I should let the men take care of things. I think it made me more open-minded.”

“And?” I ask. I’m rather enjoying this.

“Josh isn’t typical. He’s not that warrior-hunter type sociobiology tends to promote. He’s bookish, so it’s wonderful to have conversations with him. He’s devoted to his aikido and his writing. He’s – well, he’s not a big guy. That may be an understatement; I don’t think he weighs 130 pounds. Okay, he’s absolutely beautiful, and it drives me crazy because I’m not exactly beautiful.”

“What does he think?” I probe.

“I don’t know. I don’t know if he knows it’s getting serious enough in my mind that I wish we were dating, with all that implies. He hugs me and I’m curious. I have no idea where he stands and I don’t want to scare him off.”

“So you’re going to wait for him to say something first.” 

“I don’t know what else to do. I don’t want to be like a cougar or something, and – God, I think he’s a virgin.” Jeanne rubbed her forehead.

“Well, if he’s as bookish as you say he is, then I suspect you’re right. Is it that scary?”

“It’s a lot of responsibility.”

“It’s a lot of fun,” I shrug. We both break out laughing clandestinely, as if caught in something naughty.

Please weigh in

On the road again, this time to Omaha, NE to visit four interns. So I'm taking a break from the pig-wrestling that is Gaia's Hands.

Part of the problem is, I think, that I'm not feeling the characters. They're great characters, two oddballs who have managed to find each other despite an age difference and different worldviews. She's a 50-year-old botanist who lives in the scientific world, and he's a twenty-one year old writer who believes in spirits. 

There's a big taboo-breaker here; we as a society at least accept older men/younger woman relationships. We might be a teensy bit squeamish about the older man and the sweet young thing, but it's a trope which is dismissed as understandable given the purported fragility of a male ego and the rich man's ability to "purchase" youth and beauty.  Reverse the genders and it's unthinkable, the target of nervous laughter and prurient "hot for teacher" fantasies and protestations of how this is against nature because women look for strong males who can protect them ... bullshit.

As my husband reminds me, I like to bust tropes all to hell. I also have a fascination with younger men, even though they do not have a fascination with me (that damned biology, I guess). But I'm struggling with the questions about Jeanne and Josh's relationship:

• Can Josh be mature for his age even though he hasn't gotten into the workplace yet (and will likely go into grad school after he graduates)?
• Will Jeanne have patience for Josh's trajectory? (She doesn't need him as a provider, but would want him to have self-determination)
• Could Josh be attracted to the older, curvy, saggy Jeanne?
• Could Jeanne be attracted to the younger, rather small-boned Josh? 
• Are Josh's parents going to crap themselves if Josh brings home an older woman (they will) and will Josh care (probably not)?

In other words, can I make this believable? Please weigh in. 

Hodge-podge of slop

I got my 30 hours in for Camp NaNo, but there's still so much more to write/clean up for Gaia's Hands. Every day, I think about what could be missing from the document:

• Is there enough description? 
• Is Jeanne and Josh's budding relationship going too slowly? Too quickly?
•  Are there enough female characters? 
• Should I have taken Annie Majors out when I took the Eric/Annie relationship out for being too complicating? 
• Is the danger ratcheting up enough? 
• Do I care about this book anymore?

Honestly, about the last point, I'm not feeling it at all. I feel like this is a hodge-podge of slop and I can't figure out how to make it into a book.

Good wishes are welcome.

Avoidance

I'm getting avoidant toward Gaia's Hands.

Honestly, every time I add something, I feel like I didn't do enough, and I wrestle between going on and adding more plot and going back and adding more detail. 

I think I need to do the former, because I need a whole book to react to. But it doesn't feel rewarding, just a long slog with no cookies at the end of the day.

I'd drop it entirely, but I'm in the middle of Camp NaNo, and I have six hours left to write till goal. I've only lost a NaNo once, and that was when Trump got elected. 

So I'm going to have to go on and write, with hopefully an aha reaction with my characters today.

Mud-wrestling a pig

I took a break from Gaia's Hands yesterday to prepare query materials for Apocalypse. Not so much because I'm ready to query Apocalypse as much as I'm at my wits end trying to fix Gaia's Hands.

I probably wouldn't bother at all, just relegate Gaia's Hands to the "lessons learned" pile were it not for the fact that it's a prequel to Apocalypse, and I think I can get Apocalypse out there. 

Gaia's Hands is a smaller story, dealing with corporate greed and sticking to one's convictions -- and a Goddess, of course. But editing it feels like mud-wrestling a pig, and the pig is winning.

optimism and waiting

Apocalypse is ready for querying, but I'm going to sit on it for a while, until I know what's happening with Prodigies. If Prodigies gets accepted by either DAW or the remaining agent on my list, it changes the whole dynamic. 

I'm thinking positive. My good Germanic role models on my mother's side of the family would discourage my positive thinking. The Koenig family motto is "Don't look forward to anything; you might be disappointed." The problem with this, though, is that all that time I'm not looking forward to a positive outcome doesn't make the rejection any easier, and in fact, prolongs the misery.

Optimism always makes me worry that I might be hypomanic; as someone with Bipolar 2, this is not an idle worry. But I'm not being kept awake by disparate thoughts linking  with each other like boxcars in a railyard, so maybe this is true optimism.

So I wait.  

An excerpt from Gaia's Hands

I am getting so tired of editing.

That's all I've been doing this summer -- editing/rewriting whole novels, starting with Apocalypse (almost ready for querying) and continuing with Gaia's Hands (my current source of despair). But it's between that and putting them in a drawer somewhere, and I think that, now that I have a sense of what the novels need, they deserve the second (actually fifth) chance.

When I started writing, I thought that my first draft was the final product, which was my honor-student hubris speaking. Those rejections were the best thing to happen to me, because they made me work harder and learn more. 

That being said, it's time to go back to editing Gaia's Hands. My commitment to Camp NaNo is one hour per day, but I've been doing two just to be safe. 

********************

Now, an excerpt:

On Wednesday, Jeanne arrived at her office after her 11:00 class to find Dean Davidson, who she had previously only met at college meetings, standing at her office door with two other men. All wore bespoke suits that probably cost as much as her monthly salary.
“Jeanne,” Dr. Davidson said in his light, cultured voice as he stood at her office door with two other men. “This is Jack White, the Chief Financial Officer of Growesta — “ Jeanne shook hands with a middle-aged man with silver hair and a tan — “and Enzo Patricelli, Board of Directors.”

Jeanne shook Patricelli’s hand. His eyes, ice blue in a pale, strikingly handsome face, held eye contact for a hair more than was polite, and Jeanne wondered if he was from another country. He seemed foreign to her with his auburn hair falling just a little too long for Corporate America, and a slightly stiff manner about him. Austere, even chilly, but handsome in a compelling way. Jeanne wondered what his role in the proposal would be.

They discussed nothing significant on the trip to the steakhouse, nor did Jeanne expect to. Nor did they talk over the dinner of steak and potatoes. True to what she suspected, the men served the proposal with dessert and coffee.

“Jeanne,” Dr. Davidson led the gambit, sipping his coffee, “I understand you’re applying to become a full professor this fall.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Jeanne said.  “I have my materials together; you should receive them for review the first of August.” She remembered the earlier hints Davidson had dropped.

“I’ve noticed you haven’t brought any grants into the department lately,” Davidson replied.

Jeanne felt herself tense up, her hands flatten on the table. She took a deep breath. “I received a grant two years ago, a sizeable grant from the National Science Foundation.”

“Still,” Davidson said.  “I believe we can offer an opportunity that would not only fund your research, but would vastly improve your changes of promotion.”

“Okay,” Jeanne said, knowing she sounded tactless, “tell me about it.”

“Well,” Jack White began, “Growesta is reaching out to make connections with promising faculty in various agricultural institutions, and we decided to start here at home. We at Growesta have been following your career with interest. You have an excellent track record in research with your — uh — Jeannie Bean. You have media exposure in the Chicago market talking about your research, and you come off with integrity, all things we’d like to capture.”

Capture. Jeanne hoped that was an unfortunate choice of words. “So what is it you’re offering?”

“We’d like to invite you into a collaboration with us where you could help us promote new varieties of beans for the agricultural market. You’re known for your work with beans.”

Jeanne took a deep breath. “You’ve looked at my work. I bred a perennial bean for larger bean size to make it more interesting to a consumer market. These beans were developed to be planted within the context of permaculture gardens, which are by definition organic. Are you offering an opportunity for me to work with you on promoting beans for organic applications?“

“We aren’t pursuing organic strategies at this time,” White replied. “But someday, I suppose, we may get to that point. We want you to promote our herbicide-ready products to the public, who has become increasingly distrustful of our products. You have captured the imagination of — of at least the marketing department at the University, and the regional media as well, as is evidenced by your interviews with Chicago-area stations. We would like to have you speak for us.”

“But my research — “ Jeanne stammered. “It’s not —”

“I know what your research has been,” Dean Davidson interrupted smoothly, “and it has been excellent research. But look at the opportunties here. We’re talking about money for you to continue your research, which we will treat as a grant for the purpose of your portfolio and taxes. Upward of $50,000 a year. And this should pretty much guarantee your promotion to full professor.”

That money would fund a lot of research, Jeanne considered. But tenure … “You can’t guarantee me full professorship.”

“You would be surprised,” Patricelli spoke for the first time, in clipped words. “Corporate dollars go far into greasing the wheels of the college administration.” In his words, Jeanne heard promise — and warning.

“I don’t know,” Jeanne nearly stammered, meeting Patricelli’s eyes in their icy regard. “Please let me consider this offer.”

“Okay,” White said. “But we can’t wait for too long. The ad campaign would need to be drawn up soon.”

Ugh

Back home. I'm staying home to write today because I'm feeling under the weather -- but not enough under the weather to not make my two hours writing for Camp NaNo.

My head feels like two gerbils are nesting in it. My tummy feels like -- oh, how novel. I have food poisoning from the suspect sushi I ate yesterday. 

Writing will be postponed.

Strange activity on the blog

Occasionally, my blog will get bursts of energy, with several countries visiting all at once -- a bouquet of visitors from Japan and Ukraine and Moldova and Sweden and Moldova. All on the same type of browser. All reading the same note -- which is not the current post. Usually a day or two after I've last posted on a slow post week.

The most obvious solution is that my post count has been increased by a bot, probably one that can spoof countries. But why? Why bother spoofing different countries? Why bother actually connecting to a post? (I've noticed times when my hit count has increased with no specific blog posts hit). It doesn't seem to be an effort to disseminate porn links (which happens now and again). If it's a DDOS attack -- well, it's too modest for a DDOS attack. 

The only thing I can think of is that something or someone is trying to inflate my reader numbers. Thanks, I think.

*************
Today I'm at the Graduate Hotel in Iowa City, IA, home of the Iowa Writers' Workshop (the ranks of which are too rarefied for me).  Here's a picture, apropos of Gaia's Hands:

Writing in Beaver Dam WI

Another day at Higher Grounds in Beaver Dam having just finished another three hours of writing. I'm at 14 hours out of 30 for Camp NaNo July, and I'm at least getting more words for Gaia's Hands. I think it's going to go through another dev edit because it deserves it and it's now a much different book.

Richard has just gone through a line edit of Apocalypse, which means a couple fixes and it's ready to go into Query Mode. It's a very different book than the one that failed in querying. I think I've grown a lot from when that was the second (and third) book I've written.

One thing I've discovered: Nobody's impressed that I'm a writer. I'm secretly amused by this, because there's this part of me who dreams of impressing people. In reality, it's "Oh, you're a writer? You're not published yet? Have you tried children's books?" I have nothing bad to say about children's books, but unless they involve ancient lore, preternatural bad guys, and the reincarnation of King -- Oh, sorry, that's Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising sequence. Loved that stuff.

I stay optimistic, maybe because I've won one short story contest and been a runner-up in another. (I've been rejected by three times this many zines and contests, though). 

Vacation in Horicon

I haven't written because I am having good family time in Wisconsin, celebrating the Fourth the way I like to: bratwurst and sauerkraut, good cheese and beer.

During summer, my dad lives in a camp trailer at The Playful Goose just outside of Horicon, on the Rock River and not far from Horicon Marsh. It's a cozy place cluttered with hobbies: woodworking tools, winemaking, a ham and bean soup in the crock pot.  

It's a great time for family stories, with my dad and my Uncle Ron telling their adventures from childhood (and the time Uncle Ron set off illegal fireworks years ago on the lawn of the house on Beloit Avenue). Storytelling is an important part of relating in my family.

It's much easier to be around my family since I've been on my mood management medications. I used to feel so much pressure to talk that it was hard for me to be there. Now I'm relaxed, and I enjoy it a lot more.

I'll leave on Sunday with more stories and more appreciation for my family.

******
I'm in Camp Nano right now, and I'm trying to maintain two hours per day to keep up. My family's accustomed to me ducking out to write. I'll keep you posted.

Pleasant Surprise for Today

According to this Tweet:

Congrats to our June winners, Peter Bethanis and Lauren Leach-Steffens @lleachsteffens, and to all shortlisted writers and artists. Next deadline is July 27th: https://t.co/tS1XrWnfAR pic.twitter.com/TTfW06slZP

— The A3 Review & Press (@TheA3Review) July 2, 2019

I'm pleased.

All that's left is the bones

That scream you just heard? That was my story after I gutted and flayed it.

I am revising Gaia's Hands -- or so I thought. I looked over the structure of my story and realized it needed ... a lot. The bones are solid: the unlikely couple of Jeanne Beaumont and Josh Young, their struggle against a corporate-academic partnership that threatens Jeanne's livelihood and more, the development of their relationship with the World-Soul Gaia and their talents. The flesh on the bones -- the particulars, the pacing -- all off.  

In other words, the outline needs reshaping, and large amounts of it need to be completely rewritten knowing what I know now about writing. 

I really don't know if I'm up to rewriting this story.

Sigh.

Indolent Days

Hours stretch into nothingness on a hot Sunday -- no reason nor inclination to go out, no desire. But I do desire -- it's time for me to finish a long, drawn-out wrestling match with a novel.

I spend a long day writing in the corner of the living room, held in a bubble where the outside world with its triple-digit heat index doesn't touch me. I triumph over the tangle of words I sorted out to create this story.

In this, I have privilege, a virtual room of my own and the space to be creative, an air conditioner in the heat, time enough for timelessness. 

What can I give in return? Gratitude for this moment, this place, this space in the universe. Time and heart to help those who struggle. My words, that they may comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, as Mother Theresa once said*. 

*******

*To those who object to my quoting Mother Theresa, I agree that Mother Theresa was a disturbing figure who had the means to lift her afflicted charges rather than comfort them, yet did not because she believed that suffering glorified God. As such, she has much to answer to. On the other hand, her statement makes a great mission statement even though she failed to live up to it.