Mostly sane write-at-home-mom

My name is Cathy (the K is just to have a unique username almost anywhere in cyberspace) and I've been looking for a writing forum like this that's relaxed enough to be fun but serious enough to be useful. I also love it that you guys have an actual, serious-sounding no-drama policy. May I join you?

I work hard at home, shaping (twisting?) the minds of my three-year-old and one-year-old girls and generally keeping my apartment clean. Most of the time. Okay, at least half the time. I'm also a co-administrator of a fun online parenting forum focusing on a slightly hippie-ish approach to raising small children (www.earthymommies.com).

I'm expecting a third girl in June, just to make sure we'll always outnumber my husband. He's a hardworking, honest car salesman with no bushy mustache or plaid sport coats. No, really. They exist. And he's smart and good-looking, too.

Staying at home has, ironically, been my best career move ever because it's so boring that I finally invested the time and energy necessary to turn my writing pipe dream into a plausible long-term goal.

First I completed a novel, which is mouldering away in a file on my hard-drive. Unfortunately, writing it felt like work, revising it felt like torture, and reading it didn't make me think "Hot damn, I am the next Faulkner that everyone will actually enjoy reading as much as Stephen King!"

Fortunately, while I was alternately begging for mercy and screaming my way through fiction revisionist hell, I read a few books and articles on freelance magazine writing. I sent out three queries a day for weeks, collected rejection slips in a binder as though they were tokens I had to save up to buy prizes at an arcade, and managed to sell a handful of articles to the poor suckers at ByLine, American Iron Magazine, Verbatim, Christian Home & School, Christian Parenting Today, FellowScript, CollegeBound, and The Bridge Bulletin.

Unfortunately, once I pulled that little bit off, I thought I could eventually get into bigger magazines and I didn't really care. I know, I know. This is like being accepted into a rock band in Phoenix and suddenly deciding I didn't feel like being Mick Jagger. Cocky, eh? But why shoot if I'm not going to aim high? And if I don't like the target, why shoot at all? My main problem was that I don't like sales, and freelancing seemed to require a much higher pitching-to-writing ratio than I liked, even if I ever managed to make it to the big leagues.

Fortunately, I hated writing fiction and enjoyed freelance writing just enough to finally figure out that I wanted to be C.S. Lewis of Mere Christianity or maybe even The Screwtape Letters instead of C.S. Lewis of The Chronicles of Narnia.

So I read a few books on proposal-writing, spent several months writing and editing a book proposal, and have been seeking an agent for two weeks. I researched agents handling books similar to my idea and sent out three queries and three proposals, depending on their preferences. One agent to whom I snail-mailed a query has emailed to ask for the full proposal. I'm feeling pessimistically optimistic about it.

I hate to admit it, but I am usually this long-winded. On a brighter note, I'm not usually anywhere near this self-absorbed. I'd love the chance to talk to other writers who don't take themselves seriously but actually write, too. Again, mind if I join you guys?

Oh, good, but I should warn you that I stole it from someone else, lol.

Thanks for the kind words, everyone!