The Next Circle of Hell

Lily, two speznas coming right up! And a whack with the spatula--your book will rock.

ST, have a thoroughly beachy time. Meaning no Rs or worry about said. And, um, lift a spezna to Matt for me.

Rosie, yes please, cake. Now, please!!

Oh, my goodness, I am SO glad I discovered this thread. Because you guys? I AM IN THE NEXT CIRCLE OF HELL. YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!

Okay, actually, I've been in the circle for almost three months now. So there has been lots of squeeing and also lot of "OMG IS THIS THING EVER GOING TO SELL????" moments. And I know, three months is ONLY three months. NO NEED TO PANIC. But still, of course there will be panicking. And there will be good days, too. Really, really good days.

I've been feeling very optimistic as of late, though I can't really explain why. Maybe it's connected to the fact that I had my agent stop forwarding the rejections. In the beginning, I was definitely in that "I have to know!!!" phase. But after several came in (seven in one week. SEVEN.) I kind of felt like "I know too much, mayday MAYDAY!!!" And after a few more I decided to stop getting them. Some of them were really awesome. Positive, encouraging. A few definitely made me bristle, to say the least. But even though I still feel that compulsive desire to know why people are passing, I've been feeling much better since they stopped coming in. More confident and hopeful. So, yay!

I'm so excited to hear about all the successes people are having here. Many congrats to you all! It's autumn, so I shall contribute apple martinis, or apple brandy, if you prefer

Welcome, Moonfairee. Keep comin' back.

Hi, Moonfairee! Hell is definitely a good find.

I sent my latest ms to my agent a few weeks ago, but she let me know she's been swamped lately. Even so, waiting for her response is nerve-wracking, maybe even more so than being out on sub. If she doesn't like it, I will be back to the query-go-round...

I spent my week uploading my ms to Kindle, rereading it in its entirety, and correcting all the little typos and formatting errors. It's the closest I've come to feeling like a published author. Gave me a boost, at least.

Hope everyone's doing well in here.

Welcome to the club moonfairee, I'm a couple of months behind you, just waiting on publishers to respond, and biting my nails.

Meanwhile I'm writing some a really dark story. I wonder if I'm taking my frustrations out on my MC, 'cause man is he in a world of crap right about now.

moonfairee said:

Oh, my goodness, I am SO glad I discovered this thread. Because you guys? I AM IN THE NEXT CIRCLE OF HELL. YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!

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Welcome, moon, and best of luck on sub!

Welcome, Moonfairee!!!

Welcome, Moon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Welcome Moon!!

Welcome to hell, Moon! Sending good luck vibes to you!!

Drachen Jager said:

Meanwhile I'm writing some a really dark story. I wonder if I'm taking my frustrations out on my MC, 'cause man is he in a world of crap right about now.

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This sounds like all of my stories.

Welcome Moon!

Tonight, can we say goodnight Moon?

Heya hellions, Other Lisa was talking about how a creator's perception of their work is often overly critical and I happened across this movie today which discusses the topic in a very inspirational way. Enjoy!

http://brassbolts.blogspot.com/2011/10/obvious-to-you.html

Welcome, Moon! And Happy Friday to all!

Welcome, Moon!

DJ, I gotta say, I will be very happy to be done with these page proofs.

Drachen Jager said:

Heya hellions, Other Lisa was talking about how a creator's perception of their work is often overly critical and I happened across this movie today which discusses the topic in a very inspirational way. Enjoy!

http://brassbolts.blogspot.com/2011/10/obvious-to-you.html

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I loved that!

Re: self-criticism of ones work, as Other Lisa brought up (luck luck luck on finishing page proofs, Lisa!)

That's the real hell for me. I go through that, too, and it's worse when I'm feeling down or in a bad mood. I avoid my WIP on days like that, because diving into it is physically painful, aka the perfectionism, as the negative rears its ugly head.

And it still happens even if industry pros and betas are raving. It's such a bizarre phenomenon.

Thank God I don't have a lot of bad days. : )

Welcome to Moon, waves to DG and luck to all.

As for me, I finished my revs (worked night and day for three weeks, sometimes till 2 a.m.!) and sent them into agent. The book is better for it, which of course has me dancing around. It's like we managed to take my literary-ish style (wings) and marry it to commercial/hook/plot (roots).

I could hug the stuffin' out of New A for this, but I'm trying to hold back all the gushing, lol. It's tough!

Everything crossed for everyone!

Em

Oh, I feel so loved!!!

Thanks for all the welcomes.

LoL, Cloud, you can definitely say Goodnight Moon

Callalily, I write YA. My agent is subbing a YA mystery/realistic YA, and right now I'm writing YA urban fantasy with dark faeries.

Sending good luck and vibes to everyone.

Welcome, Moonfairee! Sorry it's so hot in here, but we're all burning old rejection slips and setting ourselves on fire over our submissions!

LOL. Em I gush all the time to her. Sometimes it sounds like I'm drunk, "I love you man!" LOL

Have I mentioned that I hate my book? Because right now, I do.

Gah. I am definitely going to do a purge of a few of my least favorite sentences, page proofs or no. I'm almost done on the first pass, catching the formatting errors and marking things I don't like and things I know need to be changed (TWO continuity errors! TWO! This in spite of two incredibly attentive agents, editor and THE most thorough copy editor on the planet!).

Gah. Feh. Gah.

This isn't really Next Circle fodder, I'm just giving you a preview of the NEXT next circle...mwhahahahahah!!!!!!!!

Know exactly what you mean. When the galley arrived all nice and pretty, I didn't even want to crack it open. But when I did, what did I find? A quotation mark in the middle of a sentence (swear it wasn't there before); an error (my fault) and some formatting issues. All of this after three copy edit rounds, a proof-reading, first author's review and an independent review by a freelance editor PLUS the production coordinator.

I pretty much hate my book too!!!

Hate, hate, hatey McHate!

Hatey McHate: a mini-me trash talking in my ear every time I do a reread.