fairy sparkle sledgehammer of love and retribution

http://www.rhapsody.com/fine-young-cannibals/the-raw-and-the-cooked/dont-let-it-get-you-down/lyrics.html

Last night, I did nothing. No writing. No forward motion, nothing. The journal entry tonight (which I scribble in before writing) said “No fun writing. No fun at all. When I do have a good day, it seems the next is horrid. I must chug on. I know it will get better. It must, or I will quit. I will quit forever this time.” Then I grit my teeth, opened up my WIP and got to work. It was not going well, and after two maudlin pages, (I had said I would write 8 to make up for yesterday) I was about to throw my hands up. 

I cheated. I got on AW to look around, you know, how you poke your head in to see what’s shakin’. And I had a pm. I don’t know about you, but there should be a 12 step program available for those of us addicted to pm’s. I love them. They make my heart go all flutter pat. So I opened it. Not such good news. Gal told me she had many rejections after very high hope-age. She wanted to thank me for a silly thing I said, that it made her laugh.

I don’t know what came over me - but I just felt this must not stand. Instead of whipping off a “it’s ok, you’ll be ok,” cuddle post, I got up on my high horse and rode. Told her not to let it get her down. Don’t give up. Rejection sucks, it just sucks! At least you tried. I am such a coward, I have stopped writing in the past at the simple FEAR of doing a query. I have told you how Writer’s Markets give me an itchy trigger finger. At least she got to the submission stage! Who gets there? Not a lot of us.

I also told her I had been online neglecting my goal and my WIP when I got her note. Then I told her she had tonight to wallow and tomorrow, I expected her to crawl out of the hole she was in and get back to work. You don’t get published if you give up. I told her I was going back to my WIP, going to finish my work for the night. Why? Because I am a writer. I want to write. I will write. And nothing will stop me this time. Even if it is only to get to the stage where I submit and get rejected.

I did write. The first line after I got offline was this one:

She wanted to think she saw movement under his eyelids, but it was only the play of light and shadow across their swells and hollows.

Now, it’s not Faulkner. It’s not Tolkien, but it did say what I wanted it to, and it was probably the best line I’ve written since I got back to work on my WIP two weeks ago. I’m not saying the light came on and I was on the ride fantastic, but far off, a candle flickered, and I felt more hope than I have these last 2 weeks.

What about you? Are you meeting your goals? Are you setting them? Unfinished books don’t make the rounds. Castles in the air need foundations, you know.

Simple triumphs, people. Grab them and keep them close to you when they come.