Usual ratio.

[mrissa]

I often say, "I believe 'win some, lose some' is the usual ratio, and that holds here." Well. Yep.

Win some: my contacts have arrived at the optometrist's! I get them in an hour. And then I get to stop feeling like a gawky, ugly 11-year-old. (This feeling doesn't set in until I've had to wear my glasses for more than a day straight, now that I have decent glasses. But it's been a week and a half of glasses. The blue and silver Anubis's Scale* necklace I got from porphyrin on Saturday is barely holding back the tide, here. I recognize that I do not actually appear to be a gawky, ugly 11-year-old. Sometimes the things that are all in our heads are the ones that matter.)

Lose some: book rejection today. Blerrrrrrg. Nobody likes book rejections. Book rejections suck a bazillion and one times more than short story rejections. (For me. Your mileage etc.) Book form rejections? And lo, the sucking is mighty.

This was the only one of my books sitting on the desk of an editor I haven't met in person. The World Builders. The one I wrote as a YA and then squinted at sideways and decided it was really children's, because I got ideas for YA SF novels, and they looked much older than this one. Anyway, I have done nearly no research on markets between picture book and YA lengths. I have no idea what to do with this one now. I guess if I'm going to go writing middle-grade children's books (which I am; Zodiac House is also one), I'd better poke around and figure out what I can do with them when they're written.

This makes it harder for me to keep ignoring the echoing silence through the rest of my submissions log, too. But I will try to behave, that is, not to whine and fuss. Very much. After right this very minute.

Sigh.

*It's got hearts and a single feather; what else weighs such things together?

Comments

[sraun]

Were you at Minicon this past Easter? Someone in your local circle should be able to put you in touch with Sharyn N, I would expect she might be able to give you some hints - assuming she's got the time.

But she seemed to be fen and editor - a nice combination.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

sdn already has more of my fiction on her (at least metaphorical) desk than any one human being should have to put up with, but I'm afraid she does YAs, not middle-grade books. (Actually I'm not afraid at all. I'm glad she does. I just don't know if she has an equivalent among childreny children's editors. Don't know that it's the same group of people at all, and don't know that there's a fannish editor among them. It's a good hope, though.)

[sraun]

I thought the chances of you having an existing connection to sdn were high - but I didn't want to admit to knowing her LJ handle if you didn't. ;-)

Because I'm paranoid - do I correctly interpret this to say, 'Oh, I hadn't thought of asking her if she knew someone else that I should submit to'?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It is true that I had not thought to ask; we are speaking similar dialects of Minnesotan.

You were not in my dream last night, but five of your clones were. I kept trying to explain to dd_b that I'd already met you at his birthday party, but he kept saying, no, this was your clone Steve, no, this was your clone Harold, etc. I have no explanation for this.

[sraun]

It is good to have my understanding confirmed - thanks!

{chuckle} about the dream!