Content Warning: mention of roadkill (maybe don’t be eating and reading? Actually don’t eat and read anyway you are getting food all over your keyboard and/or mobile device. Do you at least have wetnaps on hand? Honestly.)

I had a whole long post planned out for this week about the frustration of being stuck in limbo; but I’ll save that for another week because today was A Day.

THIS MORNING

I woke up to a form rejection from an agent that I’d already marked off my list as ghosted (meaning she hadn’t gotten back to me inside the time she gave as a response time; a lot of agents do this and clearly say “no answer within X weeks is a no”. It’s pretty standard, whatever one’s feelings on the practice). So, ho-hum, yet another rejection, but annoyingly, since I’d already marked her as ‘ghosted’, I couldn’t colour in an additional star on my bullet journal spread. Colouring in stars for each rejection helps keep me sane.

And then about an hour later I got ANOTHER rejection. From the SAME AGENT. More specifically, her agency’s common email. It was clearly auto-generated because both my name and manuscript title were in all caps but also they urged me to seek out resources to help me on my publishing journey–including Writer’s Market Guide To Literary Agents.

Which is where I found the agent in the first place (and mentioned so in the original query, sent end of June).

Thanks, guys. So helpful.

THIS LUNCHTIME

I decided to take myself off to my coworking space because I wasn’t getting much work done at home and resolved to buy myself poutine for lunch to try to cheer myself up.

About a block from the house it started raining on me.

Two blocks further along was a DEAD CAT on the side of the road and I won’t go into gory details but I will say I RECEIVED AN ANATOMY LESSON and it’s something I’m not going to be able to UNSEE for a while *mimes barfing into bushes*. Called 311.

Got to the coworking space. Discovered I had oddly little appetite after all and so didn’t finish my cheat-day poutine. 😐

THIS AFTERNOON

A notification popped up – new email.

I have to admit that lately I’ve been dreading the email notifications on my phone. Unlike The Before Times where I could choose to avoid checking my email until I was emotionally prepared to turn on the computer, hook up to the internet, open a browser, and type in my login, with my phone those pesky little notifications come in whenever. Any time of day or night! And even if I turn the notifications OFF, it’s still lurking. Waiting. Since I am alone most of the day, I am not willing to go dark and give up chatting on social media, and so email notifications when I am not emotionally prepared for a rejection is the trade-off. It’s not a great system but it’s what I’ve got.

Some days the rejections don’t even bother me.

Some days I see the notification and the first two lines “Dear Victoria…” and I let out strangled wookiee noises and regret giving up wheat/sugar.

Some days I skip the wookiee cries and go straight to the stash of chocolate that is Only Supposed To Be Eaten In Case of Writer’s Blocks As Motivation. (It’s not a great system but it’s what I’ve got and you can take my ritter sports when you pry them from my cold dead fingers.)

And some days, like today, I heave a great sigh and open up the email, ready to Get It Over With.

And discover it’s actually an acceptance.

(More details to come when a contract does, but it looks like I’ve sold Nights Over Ganymede for my THIRD sale of the year! Talk about hat tricks.)

What an absolutely bizonkers day.

Next week I’ll hopefully have more details on both publication of Ganymede and also maybe Pitch Wars updates? Fingers crossed.