Obligatory weekly blog post is not nearly so "obligatory" this week, because I did a thing, and I didn't expect to do the thing, but things are happening very, very fast...so buckle up.
On Sunday morning, in between anxiously waiting for news on whether my grandma's new furniture would be delivered to her apartment or not, I kept sneaking over to my laptop to check my emails. Now, listen: I'm not really sure what I was checking for. If my students email me on the weekend (and they do), I don't really do anything about it. I am not about to get into the habit of answering them on my personal time, unless someone's actively on fire.
And, besides my students and coworkers, there's no one else who'd be emailing me on my Outlook. It's a work email. It's not sexy.
But I guess I was getting anxious, because I'd sent my brilliant alpha/beta reader/professor/mentor/all around great human being what I believed was the final version of my manuscript on January 3rd. She'd gotten back to me on Draft 3 in a week, and it had now been three. I was starting to panic, because there was no possible way my new and improved draft could be so bad that it stuns her silent, right?
Unless maybe...she missed Cailleach? She thought that Enya had been serving some vital role and didn't deserve to get cut? She absolutely hated the new character arc I'd carved out for my girls, and the even slower slow-burn romance?
It was irrational, but I was spiraling.
And then I got her email on a Sunday morning, and I cried tears of joy.
She liked my final draft. A lot. My toughest critic (I say this lovingly) actually called my revision "a very smart revision." She wished me luck with querying. She had two critiques that maybe would entail a paragraph of editing max.
And the thing that made me cry the hardest? Her subject line was "your book."
She always called it my manuscript before, and now it was a book.
And then I had to go downstairs and face reality and be a caregiver again, which is fine, because I'd had a huge victory, and throughout the rest of the day, I would periodically sneak off and smile to myself.
A very smart revision.
I had done a very smart revision, while in my final semester of grad school--which was also my first semester ever doing a full courseload of grad work, the majority of which were in-person--and dealing with my own declining health, chronic pain, and nutritional deficiencies. I had done a very smart revision, while I had to become first a part-time caregiver to my grandma due to her pneumonia and then a mostly-full-time caregiver due to her fractured spine. I had done a very smart revision, even though I was too numb to even cry most nights, but I really, really wanted to, and my mental health took a spiral.
I think people, as a whole, do not give themselves enough credit. I know I certainly didn't, because I had to keep reminding myself to feel proud that I had been in pure survival mode...and yet some distant part of me was strategic enough to puzzle out changes in my draft and creative enough to turn them into art.
But, most importantly, if nothing else: I was still on track.
It kept striking me at random times throughout the day, like a static shock or a sudden rainstorm.
Back when I started these revisions in August, I had a timeline in my mind: February/March, I'd begin queries anew. I'd honestly given up on that due to the entirety of December and January, and then the anticipation that this last revision had probably been hot garbage because of the aforementioned struggles.
But, despite everything, I'd gotten my brilliant alpha/beta reader's blessing...that was the thing I'd been waiting on. I could suddenly do it. I could query again!
But then the shine wore off. Because I didn't climb the mountain yet, my friends. All I'd done was tackle a really, really difficult baby precipice and stack my odds much, much better for the next step. Because querying brings a whole new level of anxiety, and it's also kind of an art (please read my query post, please, please, please).
I knew I wasn't ready to query yet--most agents are not open anyway at this time of the year, due to backlogs from the previous year--but I'd be ready within the month, and I had to start compiling my list.
And that meant--oh Jesus H Christ, that meant--making a Twitter.
Yes, that thing I talked about fully 3 months ago. Listen, I was on the struggle bus, and then Elon took over Twitter and Buzzfeed kept saying Twitter was dead and we were all moving to Mammoth, or whatever. Plus #DVPIT and #PITMAD were done for all eternity, and social media is a very intimidating thing for me.
It just seemed easier to...not, and I didn't want a cent of my nonexistent revenue to go to that man.
But then, I was looking at my goals list for the month, and I realized I hadn't met a solid half of them. And some of them, I obviously couldn't. How can I take more walks and exercise when I barely have the energy to lift my head off the pillow? Or get my username/email address officially changed to the employee one, when Rowan still hadn't conferred my degree, and every time I tried to change it, IT kept giving me the odious "totani42"? Totan8 is just fine, thanks.
I was fully prepared, as a matter of fact, to cut my losses and not even attempt the rest of the goals. There's like, a whole other 11 months. I'd be fine.
But my professor's email changed everything. That was a goal, crossed off.
And then last night, my degree was officially conferred and my only role in the system was listed as "employee." I could get a username change. Request: submitted. Goal: crossed off.
And then, I'd technically worked overtime already this week and last, because my students were kinda needy and it was the start of the semester and the end of regular add/drop week. So, unless students emailed me with urgent issues, I really didn't have much on my Wednesday schedule other than to sit in my office for 8 hours.
Obviously, I am doing other things. I've got a Canvas course that I'm trying to build out to give students a centralized hub for major-specific info and university resources. But Canvas was being a butt this morning, so I did the next logical thing while I was waiting for the WiFi to cooperate: I made a damn Twitter.
@nicolemtota, by the way. Follow me and I will give you the absolute least amount of effort, I promise.
But anyway, I made a Twitter, intending to do relatively nothing with it other than to make a bio and monitor hashtags and try and figure out how to post without sounding like a Boomer, because this is my level of social media savvy, people.
And then I saw that there was a new trending, writerly hashtag: #IWSGPit. It was a pitch contest...and it was happening today...and it had just opened at 9...and I had just made a Twitter at 9:30 (which probably makes me look suspiciously like a bot, but I swear, I really do exist).
So, obviously, I dusted off the new pitch, which had been sitting since December, and which was much better than the old one, but still relatively sucky, and I threw my hat into the ring.
As of right now, 5 people have retweeted it, and I'm not really sure what that means. I do know that only agents are supposed to like it, and that liking it is basically an instant "send me a query" message.
The event's going until tomorrow at midnight.
I genuinely believe nothing will come of it.
But I did an item on my to-do list, and I did a scary thing, and I lived, and I think I could do a lot worse than that.
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