…except the lyrics and the tune is different.

Blackout Odyssey

My little baby is crawling! It’s on its way! Not only have I sent out my first queries, but I’ve already received my first rejection for it!

“But Victoria, that’s a BAD thing!”

Maybe. Or it’s an inevitable thing.

One reason I recommend people doing the 100 Rejection Challenge is to learn how little power individual rejections have over you. They are NOTHING. They are INCONSEQUENTIAL. They are cloudy days. Weather. Sometimes you are feeling blue for non-weather related reasons in which point a grey day suuuuuucks. And sometimes you just go about your business anyway because WHO NEEDS YOU, DAYSTAR. And rejections are, for me, exactly the same.

That being said, there’s a bit of a “okay, back to work” vibe about querying Blackout Odyssey. I’m a little more seasoned (garlic, ginger, chili oil, in case you’re wondering) and I don’t no longer have the “an agent is going to discover me out of the slush pile!” daydreams to fuel my motivation any more, but that’s okay. I have my routine, my support network, and most importantly, a stubborn streak. I WILL GET THERE EVENTUALLY emphasis on the “probably”.

Spite gets people a lot farther in life than optimism, I’ve discovered.

In the meantime, I no longer have to fear that first rejection because it happened on Sunday and so I shall eat a piece of pizza in celebration and then continue on with all the other stuff I have to do.

Creampuffs

Creampuffs is now updating weekly over Wattpad, but for people who are not Wattpadders (Wattpadians? Wattpodes?) I’ll be posting links over in the Fiction section to each chapter as it goes up. But if you are a Watterpodian, let me know and we can, like, exchange follows or whatever the kids are doing these days.

Fletcher & Cooper

I talked last week about needing to find out a way to “microwave the rat” without actually explaining what I mean. I was hoping that by this week I’d have figured out exactly what “microwaving the rat” entails so that I could explain both the metaphor and the solution, but I still haven’t got a solution. So I think it’s better to wait and leave you wondering. As an update: no I haven’t started working on it again, although I had a V Good Plot Talk with Marc in a Starbucks (the kind where you hope no one is overhearing you and secretly livetweeting your out-of-context remarks: “I’d rather not kill the kid if I can avoid it, Marc, obviously! But I’ll do what I need to. Where’s the bathroom?”)

So still stuck in the gap of Ep. 4 as for all of December BUT I think we brainstormed a way out complete with a scribbled timeline and diagram of a flying unicornless carriage. Now I just have to sit down and write the durn thing. LUCKILY today I am going to sit in a library with the Pillbug and a notebook, so if I manage to actually do some work on it, I’ll update it here.

Ashes

After I hit 50 queries on Ashes I was very discouraged and I stopped. But fuck it, I say, shaking my fist at the daystar, FUCK IT I will commit to doing another 50 although this time I might focus more on small presses. So that’s exciting! And also will make it easier to hit 200 subs, which, not gonna lie, is a big motivator.

Curve of the Corridor aka Space Crazies

Space Crazies is officially OUT OF THE DRAWER I THREW IT INTO and is currently in the hands of a potential developmental editor after passing through some beta readers. All going well, I’m hoping to query it by the end of the summer, only 9 years after starting to write it. WHO SAID PUBLISHING WAS SPEEDY

NO ONE

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So that’s… five novels I am currently in various stages with. And there’s still Embers to edit whenever I get bored (cue laughter). ONE OF THESE PIECES OF SPAGHETTI WILL STICK, BY GOD.

But at least in the meantime I have lots to keep me busy in a cosy coffee shop, eh?

Off to write! Wish me luck!