MMX

Roman numerals make everything cooler. And a year that looks so good in Roman numbers has got to be a good one.

I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. I make plans. I break things down into lists and I start tackling things one by one until they're all done. Whatever I want to accomplish, I try to figure out how to do it and then I do it – step by step.

Sometimes plans get revised. Others get ditched. Sometimes despite best efforts things don’t work out as planned. Sometimes the plague strikes. Life happens.

I had grand plans for 2009. I planned on getting an agent and selling a book. That hasn’t happened yet, but I’m revising my expectations, refining my plan of attack and moving forward.

But I’m not done with that one. In MMX I’ll get an agent.

And I’ll do my best to run the New York City Marathon.

Those are my two big plans for the year. There are also some other smaller ones. There’s even one involving a tiny panda, but I’ll save those as surprises for you.

Happy New Year! Accomplish all you want in MMX.

Dream it. Plan it. Live it.

In search of rejection

This a word cloud I created using Wordle. I grabbed my book – the whole tamale – tossed it into worlde and this is what came out. The more often a word appears in my book, the larger it will show in the cloud.

If you take a look at the cloud, you’ll know there are games, soccer, parks, friends, and beer in the book. There’s also plenty of trying, things are hard, there are plans, and there are Pirates in New York. And there’s home – the finding of it.

Here’s what’s going on: I’ve written a book and now I’m in the early stages of the torturously slow process of finding an agent. It's going well, but the book business moves at a snail pace.

I’ve queried. I’ve gotten rejected. Twice. But I’ve also queried and gotten requests for more. Twice. I’ve sent more and now I’m trying not to tear the skin off my thumbie as I wait to hear back from them.

I also had an amazing meeting with someone who works on the other side of this – on the book buying side – who gave me great advice and offered me some candy. I grabbed onto the promise of that candy like it was the last helicopter out Saigon.

But I haven’t heard back about that candy and I don’t know when I’ll hear back. I’ve been busy following her advice and working on getting short pieces published and on developing the blog, but I need to move beyond that and start getting things done.

Rejection is hard, but I need to stop being such a wimp, leave the comfort of my couch, and get out there. Rejection is good. Rejection puts me in great company, as this post I read today points out. Getting a rejection doesn’t prove anything but if I’m not getting rejected, I’m not querying enough. And I have to query if I want to find an agent.

The holidays are looming and the publishing industry breaks away from their computers and goes caroling. Which means I need to get my ass in gear.

On my to do list for this week: re-work query, send queries out to agents (at least three), finish a first-person essay that’s been lurking in my computer, and run faster.

My objective for December: to get rejected more!