Today was an interesting day--sort of. It started off rough because ... well, I've been sleeping on the floor in the boys' room for three days now. Mark is almost never able to sleep through the night anymore. (More and more nights--like last night--he's in too much pain to sleep at all.) But he's usually able to go downstairs and rest in his big, brown recliner and watch TV or whatever. This week, however, we seem to be grand central station for Dayton's teenage female population, who (of course) don't believe in sleeping before 3 a.m. unless they are forced to do so. So I've been sleeping in the boys' room to allow Mark a place to watch TV, etc. I woke up this morning with a headache out of the most BIZARRE nightmare. I got up, got my coffee, and sat down to work on my novel, but decided to write a short story instead, since the dream was still haunting me. Two hours later ... it was done. I sent it to two people, who both said, "Fah-REAKy!" Mark said, "I didn't know you had that in you!"
Anyway, I had to rush then, because I was signed up to help at the community kitchen, only to arrive there and find that they already had an over-abundance of people helping. I stayed for nearly two hours and did practically nothing (except drink coffee in a futile attempt to dispel the lingering headache--which didn't work but did make me jittery). Finally, I asked the gal in charge if she would mind terribly much if I just went home. I was looking forward to helping out, but standing around is really not my cup of tea. Kayte does "hanging out" with great ease and enjoyment. Moi? Not so much so.
I came home and found my table covered with gifts from Carmen Banke and the See Ya Later Foundation (the group that hosted the party for us a few months ago and bought us all those groceries). They had fun gifts for the kids, and a half dozen gift cards--for gas, Ross, Wal-mart, and (mostly) WinCo. I took advantage of my two unexpectedly free hours (and my unexpected plastic money!) and went grocery shopping, although Brendan and I had to go at Super Speed in time to pick up Mark and get him to his appointment at Newberg Providence to have the dressing on his pic line changed.
He has been in so much pain lately. He won't take phenergan anymore, because he has nearly died three times now when he has taken that in combination with dilaudid. But without it, he needs even MORE dilaudid. With it, he was high and sleepy. Without it ... he's just high! and still too nauseous to sleep.
Okay, that's too depressing of a note to end on, and I'm really not depressed over here! I'm trying to think of something lighter to discuss, so as not to leave people with the impression that I'm in some kind of abyss over here. Let's see ... hm ... I'm very nearly finished with my fourth (or is it the fifth?) draft of my novel! I told myself that I would send out queries over Christmas break, but now ... I'm hesitating. Generally writers worry that they won't get any response from agents, right? Well, I do worry about that, of course! But ... I also worry that I WILL get responses, and I know from what Libby and Perri and Kimila have gone through the last couple of years that agents generally want to see "more" or a rewrite of this or that (or the whole thing). All three of my writer friends have put a lot of time into trying to land an agent (and so far, only one of them has ... and her agent made the rounds of publishers and was unable to make a sale, after all that). So ... what if I DO get interest? The odds of anyone saying, "I'll take your book exactly as it is" are slim to none. Do I send it out, trusting that somehow I'll be able to find the time to do rewrites in between family obligations, teaching/lesson planning/grading and studying for the five tests I have to take this spring? Or do I put this book I've worked on for four years in a drawer until I finish grad school--in 2011? I hate to shelf something I've worked so hard on all this time, for fear that it may grow attached to the shadows of the drawer and never reappear! I'm just not sure whether I can add an agent hunt to my List of Obligations right now. Decisions, decisions ...
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