This week has been the best I've felt in three weeks or more. This latest Herxheimer reaction has really hit me hard and my body is still recovering from it. My body hurts, I'm achey - and I will never look at an arthritic elderly person the same way ever again - but still better than a little bit ago.

Pete and I did some projects in the house this weekend. Replacing a dishwasher last weekend and destroying a bunch of tiles left us in a quagmire. Dozens of cracked tiles and now some shattered ones left us scrambling to get a new floor in place before we schedule an appraisal (we want to re-fi to lower our rate and the house will have a full detailed walk-through appraisal done). It also prompted me to clean up, donate, give-away, reorganize and do tons of laundry.

All in addition to two July 4th parties (not here, out at other people's houses) and high nineties heat (it was over a hundred today!). I'm tired and I'm limping, but I feel like I've accomplished something.

Pete did the floor - so he gets all the credit. Here are some pics to see the transformation, and yes, pardon the cluttered counters. I really should have cleaned them off before I took the pic, but we had to step around the big man in the kitchen for two days, so eh, it didn't get done.



The job had already started by the time I remembered my camera.

I stated in an earlier post that I joined a Boot Camp program on savvyauthors.com and so far so good!  I'm certainly in a better spot that I was ten days ago, but I'm not quite on track to meet my goals yet. I'll have to kick it up a notch and write everyday for the next seven or so. Especially since I want some family time when we head to Charlottesville the weekend of the 18th.

I'm doing things a little different with this second book and it's causing me some anxiety. During the four months while I wrote the first one I was struggling to learn to write, join critique groups and learn to crit (as well as learn to accept crits!), posting online on WDC for short reviews (or what I call opinions), launched my Facebook page and posted my work, entered contests, joined two writing guilds and multiple sub-chapters and started blogging.

The process was so convoluted I'm amazed I got anything done. I was editing the early chapters whenever I took a break from writing, and in doing so I learned how to write better. My old writing partner and I often joked that the book takes on a completely different feel about 1/3 of the way through. And I think it does. It gets a bit darker and moves from the light hearted fluff of chapter one rather quickly.

Now, here I am with a fairly good grasp on how to write, knowing what my voice is, and I'm doing well in my chosen style. But I'm writing the book faster and losing track of things in my mind. Could be the Lyme's affecting my concentration, but with the first book I knew exactly what time it was in every single scene. Or it could be the head-hopping with multiple POVs in this book that makes things so different.

I'm focusing more on understanding the personality of who I'm currently writing rather than what time it is and where we are on the super-fast timeline. With the constant darkness of my setting and most of my characters being vamps, there doesn't seem to be a break with sleep and what not when the action starts to fly - and like I said, it makes keeping things straight rather hard.

I've gone back and started to guesstimate the time on my outline, so that I have a clue when employee shift changes would happen and which employee would be at the front desk, that kind of thing - but honestly it still feels "off" to me. I'm smack dab in the action and some of the details like time and schedule are becoming fuzzy - which can thankfully be fixed in a revision.

My first book didn't call for a lot of revising (which could change drastically when a publisher's editor gets through with it!), so knowing I'm leaving stuff out and moving forward with the story is driving me out of my comfort zone.  But I'm willing to give this method a try. I'm 40% done with book two. I added up all my weeks of actual writing (you know, not sitting on my ass and surfing the net or blogging) and I've worked roughly 5 to 6 weeks so far on this book.

There are a lot of writers that work faster and a boat load more that work slower, so I think I'm doing okay.

I got another rejection yesterday from my agent. Here it is:

I read the whole thing, and then I kept on mulling it (for several weeks!!!). It has its good points, definitely, but it feels more like a paranormal that belongs on a romance list rather than on the fantasy side. The husband/wife relationship is unusual in the paranormals that we publish. I’m afraid I’ll have to let it go.

Not bad as far as rejections go in the big scheme of things, and it's still out with five other publishers, so hopefully one of them will think the story is strong enough because of the same things that doesn't make it a cookie cutter urban fantasy. This publisher was looking at it for a straight fantasy line - and depending on the amount of sex they are comfortable with in the line she certainly could have made some slam comments, so I'm glad she didn't!

The bright side is the story stayed on her mind for a few weeks. That sounds to me like she liked it and was trying to see if she could make it "fit" into what they already produce. Most writers forget, the publisher isn't rejecting your work because it sucks (it never would have made it this far if it sucks, and you have GOT to believe that) - they are rejecting it because it doesn't fit their needs at this time.

This is a business -- and publishers are out to make money. If they had a vamp book that was stronger than mine -- or one that fit the imprint/line better-- then that is what they are going to take a risk on. Not all large publishers are able to take a chance on an unknown writer who is not writing what is currently popular (an unmarried heroine who is kick-butt and not always interested in romance, but out to save the world/solve a crime... you get the idea).

One will be. I know it. Hopefully, it will be sooner rather than later.

How do you deal with the rejection? Let it go? Binge on chocolate? Rant and scream?

Or do you realize that it is only a hurdle, one more bump on the road, to what will be the end result: getting published. 

It will happen. I just don't know when. It was Luc de Clapier who said "Patience is the art of hoping."


~C.J.

Oh, and hey - totally off topic. I did some actual physical work this week in the house. Yes, my hubby is thrilled. I stained, sanded and poly'd (repeat the last two four times) our front door. Doesn't it look shiny?

Next is painting the murphy-bed cabinet I've been putting off for weeks, staining the deck stairs and the picnic table outside, and applying teak oil to the kids wooden play set.

Ah... the joys!

This is another fellow writer from my FF&P chapter - please stop by and give her work a read!

Today I spent a few hours at my writing buddy's house. We were supposed to be working on Act 2 and 3 of her book, but well... she asked me about decorating and furniture placement. And then - BAM!

Before you know it, I've gone through 4 rooms on her main level and just gone to town. The best was when I wanted to move her desk in the room where she writes, "No, I like it where it is." I smile and nod.

Inside, I'm thinking:

Umm... Okay, I'll come back to that after I re-do you're living room, dining room and family room - oh, and the foyer too.

It was so much fun. After she loved what I did in those other rooms she allowed me to move her desk, and of course she liked it! She was the sweetest person, ooing and ahing over the placement of things. She even said about herself, "Damn, I sound like one of those people on extreme home makeovers!!"

Now the real schtick - was she being incredibly polite or did she really like it? Time will tell. I know I hadn't sold her on taking the big damn couch and pulling it away from the wall in her family room, but it needed it. Needed a 'conversation' area, not a 'shout across this pathway' type of feel.

She knows this is my true pssion, not writing, believe it or not. My husband and I lived in and flipped three homes in 6 years - way before it was ever on TV, while doing most all of the work ourselves. And now, here we are, in the fourth and final move up. House is so big we'll be fine for decades to come.

Thinking I might post some of our 'before and after' pics - it's just one more thing to pull me away from writing, so maybe I'll hold off on that til the book is done. It can be my 'reward'.

Oh - and I have some news on the writing front. I made finalist in a RWA contest down south - called the Dixie chapter, I think. Very cool, winners will be announced in July. Up in the corner is my little bit of 'flair' to go with it, a badge they sent me. I'll keep you posted!!

C.J.