A brief "News" post

I have decided to pull The Unquiet Grave from submissions for now.

It started with the query. I have trouble writing queries in any case. But the query for TUQG was really giving me fits. I just couldn't condense everything into a 3-paragraph synopsis. And I began to think, "Maybe I'm having trouble writing this query because the book is in trouble." So I enlisted some beta readers to give me a second opinion. And they have pretty much confirmed my suspicions. It needs to be clearer, tighter. I need a different ending. I need to lose about 16k words. And so on.

So, now I'm editing it down and fixing some problems.

At first I was working on She Moved Through the Fair simultaneously. But today I think I'm going to focus on TUQG. Okay, this is partly because I have a difficult scene to write in SMTtF, involving a riot at a poetry reading, and I don't feel like doing it today.

Anyway, just thought I'd post what's going on.

And the tea boils.

Now in the "tea" portion of this insomnia...

I've been up since four. As I went to sleep around midnight, this is no laughing matter. I have tried everything: hot milk, having a snack, relaxation exercises. Now I am in the "nice, soothing cup of tea" portion of the morning. If it keep up for another hour, I may just go ahead and make the coffee.

It wouldn't be so bad if I could be assure of having a nap later, but I've been really bad about napping the past few days. Just can't get my mind to shut off.

I wonder if I'm having a touch of mania. If so, I don't mind much. It's way better than the depression. I've gotten a lot of work done. I'm already three chapters into She Moved Through the Fair, which is really good, as I just started seriously writing it on Friday. The chapters are shorter than those in TUQG, but it's still the first draft so that may change.

Later.

On Pins and Needles...

...waiting to hear from the latest agent I queried about The Unquiet Grave. I sent the query in on Thursday morning. With the three queries I sent before that one, I heard within a matter of hours (I love e-mail queries; it makes the process so much quicker and easier!). This latest agent stated on her web page that she usually answers e-queries within a day. But I haven't heard anything yet. Does this mean anything?

It's a hard line to walk, between trying to stay positive and upbeat--i.e., not putting negative energy into the process--and remaining realistic. I want to think that the extra time it's taking means she's seriously considering my work. I realise this is a long shot. I almost didn't query her at all. She said she isn't interested in fantasy. But she is interested in mystery and music. And she said, "when in doubt, query." So I did.

My mind keeps making up all kinds of stories about this. Maybe she's reading my query over and over, trying to decide. Maybe she's discussing it with other agents she works with. Maybe she'll pass it along to one of them. Maybe they're having an entire staff meeting about me.

More likely, she's just swamped and hasn't got to my query yet.

Still, every time I open my e-mail and there is no rejection there, my heart gives a little leap of hope.

In other news, I spent Thursday night re-plotting She Moves Through the Fair in my mind (and with M.'s help). I think I have a good story, if I can pull it off. I actually made some headway on it yesterday. I got about halfway through chapter two. I wanted to make it all the way through, but after working for five hours or so my brain just gave up. It's still the rough draft, of course. I think I'm going to have to go back through and add more detail. But I think it's good. A better story than The Unquiet Grave, even.

Over and out.

Restless.

I can't seem to settle to anything these days. Reading isn't doing it for me. Maybe it's just the book. I'm re-reading Robin Hobb's Fool's Errand and I can't seem to keep my mind on it. I liked it when I read it before, but now it's just boring me. As I said in my last post, I've been feeling like I'd like to work again. The fear is less than it was (yesterday was the worst day ever for that, but now I'm better), but I still can't seem to concentrate. I've been querying agents about The Unquiet Grave. Three rejections and counting on that, but I'm plugging away. Someone's got to want it. I've been smoking like a fiend. And I've been trying to work on She Moved Through the Fair. That's going slowly. I can only remember about half the plot--shame on me for not keeping better notes--but that's not all of it. It comes very slowly. Where once the words were fluid, now I have to search for every one. Right now, I can't get Caitlin and Timber out of their house and to the gig. I try to tell myself, "Just spit it out!" but that's mostly a wash. So I spend a lot of time sitting on the couch, staring into space and rehearsing the words of what comes next. It's work of a kind, I guess, but it's also pretty boring. I feel a lot like I just sit around all day, waiting for it to be time to go to bed so I can get up and do it all over again. Not that bed is much of a relief, either. I woke up at three this morning and never did get back to sleep.

Well, I think it's time to roam about some more...

A Handful of Dust

"What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust."
--T.S. Eliot, "The Wasteland"

Coming out of the long sleep. Almost a year: I have not been literally asleep, rather in abeyance. The self that is me has been curled up tight, perhaps undergoing some kind of metamorphosis, perhaps only waiting for some moment in time, this moment. I think this moment, yet I have no idea what makes this moment different from any other.

I know dissatisfaction with my life. This is something I have not known for long and long, though I have not really had a life for the past year or more. Only a waiting, an existence. A space of time during which I have had the barest consciousness of myself and the world around me.

Now I come to myself and I find myself dissatisfied. I am bored, restless and cranky. I want more. Yet I still feel very little connection with anything. I reach for connection, and I know only the sickness of fear.

It started, I think, with the reading. At first I was glad to be reading, because I had not been able to do even that much for a very long time. Now I have been doing little but reading for several months. And I begin to recognise the old hunger. I am tired of reading, of being a witness to things in which I have no real part. I want to create again.

And so, I turn my eye to writing once more. I have spent the last couple of weeks reading everything I have ever written. At first I felt nothing at all. I saw dead words that did not move me. I scanned novels of a few pages or half finished, and did not remember what they were supposed to be about or why I should care.

Then I began to feel a stirring in my belly. Not inspiration: fear. A throwing up fear.

I do not know what this fear is about. It refuses a name.

I wanted to say more about this, but at the moment there is nothing more to say.

I'm so tired...I haven't slept a wink...

I'm so tired...my mind is on the brink...

Enough with the singing, already.

Okay, so for those of you hanging on my every post, which admittedly are few and far between, I won my disability claim. W00t! But that's not the end of it. I have to deal with the mounds of paperwork from the office of Social Security and Disability before I see any benefits. At least, that's how it seems. I was supposed to get a deposit to my account this week but it still hasn't come. I don't know why. Usual bureaucratic delays, I suppose. But I keep thinking they're going to take it away from me or that something will go wrong somehow. I already found out my dentist doesn't accept Medicaid, which I now have, so I still owe him wads of money from my last visit. And we haven't paid our mortgage in two months now and I'm afraid our house is going to get yanked out from under us. I mean, I guess we could start selling the furniture or something. And I'm up over my head in credit card debt and...well, the list goes on and on, doesn't it.

But I'm really not sleeping right now because I located someone on Facebook. This is a person I was best friends with for a long time, and then she was going through a hard time and I was going through a hard time and there was a lot of badness between us, I guess, and the relationship ended. Okay, I ended it after she sent me a particularly acerbic e-mail. I didn't mean to. But I ended up crying for three days and had to be sedated and I couldn't go on with the situation anymore.

But the think is, I never stopped missing her. Or dreaming about her. And they were good dreams. In the last one we ran into each other and we both said, "Oh, I've missed you so much!" and hugged.

So, I messaged her. Well, first I spent an hour wondering whether to message her. Then I messaged her. And now I can't sleep because I'm wondering whether she'll reply or not and whether she'll tell me to piss off or not and why I even did such a stupid thing when she's probably moved on and doesn't even remember me.

It's true, I was angry with her for a long time about that last e-mail. But I'm not now. I just want us to be friends on some terms again. I'm not such a fool as to think it could ever be the way it was. Or maybe it could be, but I think we'd have to start all over again. I just hope she gives me a chance, is all.

My head hurts and I'm delirious with lack of sleep. I need to finish this smoke and go to bed for real.

The end.

Again with the not sleeping...

I don't think it's because of last night's nightmare, though I could be mistaken.

There's just so much stress in my life right now. Stress over money--we got another hate call from the bank today. And stress over my upcoming hearing. Did I mention that I'm having a hearing this Friday on my disability claim? I guess not, because the last time I posted before yesterday afternoon was before I knew the date of it. Not of yesterday, of the hearing.

I must be tired.

My head hurts too.

So, I'm having this hearing over my disability claim. It comes down to, I claim I can't work because of my Bipolar Disorder. The SSI doesn't believe me. I appealed their first decision and now I have to have this damned hearing. Before a judge and expert witnesses and everything. It's a video conference: they'll be in Salt Lake City while I'm in Grand Junction, but still. I'm totally freaking. I keep going over and over in my head the things they might ask me and what I'm going to say. My lawyer says he'll be asking most of the questions--the key word here is most--and we've rehearsed what I need to say...and he says we stand a good chance of getting something. But my claim goes back a long way--to 1998--and he doesn't know if we can substantiate my disability back that far.

He says to just let it go because it's out of my control and what will happen will happen. But I'm scared to death. I can;t seem to let it go even though I know it's good advice to be able to follow.

Hence the not sleeping lately and the stress eating and all the bad things I'm doing to my body and mind.

I'm bored with this now. I'm nored with being awake. Please let me sleep.