Agent Lady from Friday hasn't emailed me back yet. I'll snail mail the MS over tomorrow, absent email be damned! 

Hopefully she'll still read it because I'm rather low on AA requests and I have to take all I can get. 

In other news, I got a call today from The Bank. 

Bank Lady says, "Hey Jennifer! You haven't taken that other job yet, have you?"

I'm trying not to laugh as I say, "No." The other job is Walmart, I think, and with lilrongal's help, I've read Nickel and Dimed. I'd be an idiot to take that job!

"Oh good," Bank Lady says. "Well, you did really well on your testing on Friday and we want to send you on your second interview. It's the final step in the hiring process and it'll be less formal. The manager and head teller at the East Branch just want to meet you and ask a few questions. Does that sound okay?"

I'm like HELL YEAH! I didn't say that, of course...

The job is at the East Branch, which, I'm actually pleased with. The East Branch is smaller and smaller means less imposing. And I'm already scared out of my mind about the whole thing. We played Monopoly Saturday night and I screwed up the money like a million times! How will I ever do a REAL bank job?

But anyway...my friend Lacy (who works at another bank) assures me that after a while, the job will be no big deal. You learn and you get better at it. I hope she's right. 

(Despite how scared I am and how much I'm craving an easy job---like at Staples or something---the bank job really makes the most sense. I'll mostly work while Son is in school---total bonus there. Mr. Jen has weekends off, I'll have weekends off [except for Saturday mornings every now and then] and the pay is pretty dang good. I just have to get over my initial fear of screwing up. And I also have to get the job first!)

There were several things I wanted to talk about in this post, several things that don't relate at all to each other. So I'll just make a list.

1. I hit a deer Sunday night. It's the first time it's happened to me. Really, I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner. In the newspaper, in the police records section, sixteen car-deer accidents were reported over the weekend. Ours could have been A LOT worse. Thankfully, no one was hurt and my car is still drivable. I have collision insurance, which means my car will be fixed for free. Yeah! It dented and scratched the hood, broke the grill and really smashed up the front fender, but that was it. Like I said, it could have been worse. I mean, that dang thing darted right out in front of me. There was no stopping. I remember thinking, Oh Crap. What if a hoof comes through the windshield? But there were no hooves, thank God. The scariest part was watching that deer roll off the hood of the car and then thrash on the side of the road. Luckily it got up and took off. I hope it's all right, but I'm pretty sure one of its hind legs was broken.

2. After submitting resumes and applications all over town for the last two months and receiving not one flippin' phone call, I now have two interviews this week. One at a local bank and the other at Walmart. My friend asked me tonight if I had the option to pick, which job would I go with and I had a hard time answering. The reasonable answer would be the bank---better hours, better pay, holidays off!, the opportunity to advance into a higher paying job. But I think I'd have more fun working at a place like Walmart, plus I know a ton of people who work there. I can name seven right off the top of my head. Plus I like buttons and scanners and I've always wanted to operate one of those awesome button-intensive registers. We'll see. Maybe I won't even have to choose. Maybe neither will like me.

3. I revised Possession again this weekend. I don't know why. I had already decided I was going to retire that book, but then I started thinking about it again and I couldn't STOP thinking about it. I rewrote the beginning and a few chapters in the middle. And then I status queried on a few of those agents who still had it or who had expressed interest in a revision and two of them got right back to me. One asked me to send over the newly revised edition via email when previously he'd asked for it by snail mail. The other agent wants me to email in two weeks. I also sent out four new queries. I'd thought I'd exhausted the list of agents for Possession, when really I'd exhausted the list I wanted. But this is the same thing as going for only the popular guys at school when one of the lesser known guys might actually be the better fit. So I have to try. 

4. I don't think there was a four. How about...Happy Halloween!!! 

This Mom cannot wait to go trick-or-treating tomorrow night. I love me some chocolate.
 

Got a form rejection today on Possession. And this was one of the ones that went from a partial to full. Forms on fulls annoy me. I mean, how am I supposed to know what to fix if they don't tell me what's wrong? I realize it's not their job to tell me what's wrong, but feedback would be nice!

Anyway, I'm down another notch on the confidence scale, but I'm still not depressed about the whole thing yet. I just wish that if I receive another rejection that the agent gives me something to work with. I've only received one rejection so far with good feedback and I'm not even sure I agree with it.

I've decided to work on a contemporary YA next. Seems I need to switch every other book to keep my sanity. To keep things real. You know, that's just how I roll. (I've been wanting to say that forever.)

Like I did with Possession, I'm not going to talk about the new WIP for fear of jinxing myself. I've had too many misfires this last month or so and I'm not taking any chances. I'm not sure what that will mean for Teaser Tuesday. I'd still like to post occasionally and possibly from older projects just for the fun of it. 

Now I should get to work. I'm supposed to be emailing that proposal project to J tomorrow. And I need to get that chapter outline done!

Seems like everyone is having a hard time with writing.

I'm not posting an excerpt for Teaser Tuesday because I don't have anything to post. I haven't really written. I still can't focus on one project. And even if I could, I don't think I should talk about it because it might jinx me. I'd like to know what the hell is going on. It's driving me insane. Not writing makes me cranky.

Maybe it's because no one has heard positive news lately? Seems like it's a slow time of year, spring. Agents take on all the new clients in February and March after they've recuperated from the holidays and got their stuff organized. Then spring/summer comes and again, slow time of the year. There's a surge during the fall. Perhaps their slow time is making us cranky and not so productive?

But geeze, if I have to wait till fall to hear on my submissions, I'm going to be SUPER upset.

On the brighter side, because I've hit another anxious stage, I sent another equery last night and got a full request today. Unfortunately it's by snail mail. I hate snail mail submissions.

I haven't been online much the last few days. I haven't written much either. I'm at the dreaded middle on Embers where the I-suckage has settled in like a bad cold and I just can't seem to shake it. So instead of my usual 2,000 words a day, I'm barely pushing out 800. It sucks. But what sucks more is doubting the whole idea. I have to admit, my work is often affected by the industry. I read what's going on, and I hear what the new trends are, and it gets to me. 

On the goods news side, I got another full request on Possession. And it came in the mail. My first one ever. Usually, even if I snail mail the query, I get the request through email. So this was a nice surprise. I was thinking once I saw my SASE that it was a rejection. 

On the bad news side, I got a rejection from Tina Wexler on the Possession partial I sent her. And she didn't say anything really, but that she wasn't engaged by the narrative voice. So far my rejections have all said that, except for AS's. She liked the voice, but wasn't completely sold on the main character. But how do I fix that? Character and voice are subjective areas of writing. I can't change my voice, nor do I want to. But I suppose, character-wise, I could fix Ashley, though she'd need a complete overhaul and I like her the way she is.  I suppose I'll have to see what is said from the other two submissions I have out there. I still have a full and a partial. I think I might wait to send out the new full request until I hear from these two to see what they say. If I can eek out some feedback, I might try another revision.

And on another good news side, I got a new printer!! It was an early Christmas present to myself. It's nothing fancy, just an HP bought at Walmart, but it's a photosmart and it prints about 22 ppm. My old one took an hour to print a full manuscript! I dreaded sitting down to print out a full. And the new one prints some amazing photos. I had saved a few pics of guys I found online that I thought resembled characters. They were high quality photos, so I printed a few up last night and they turned out great. I was very impressed. They are now stuck up on my character wall and I can't stop looking at them. I need more photo paper now. Pretty soon my whole wall will be full. I'm like photo addicted.

Why is it, when I'm waiting for replies on equeries, that my writing inbox is suddenly bombarded with worthless crap?

It's almost as if these emails are conjured from the ether of the Internet just to drive me insane.

I got an email today from this local writer's newsletter I joined two years ago (which has been silent for the last year) about the list owner's house being for sale. I mean, seriously! Dude, I don't care if your house is for sale! I hit the SPAM button. I would have slammed the SPAM button if my little arrow had the strength. 

Then I see 1 NEW EMAIL again and I get all excited and my heart is racing (queries are like drugs) and I'm thinking, Ohhhhh, who is it? Who replied?

I click on the inbox link and there's nothing. NOTHING. No subject line. No message. There isn't even a header to the email to tell me who it came from and where it was going. I'm telling you, the Internet has it out for me. Some world wide web spirit is out there laughing his ass off at my expense. 

I am such a slave to my email. 

The good news, however, is there is a counter spirit out there somewhere sending me good emails. I got two partial requests on Possession!!!!!

Where do I go to worship this good world wide web spirit? I'll send it chocolate or cookies or a goat if it wants one.