Back to Life Back to Reality after Chautauqua

Is it inevitable to tumble down into a valley after a mountaintop experience? Reality is just so REAL, you know? Yesterday I received another big, fat rejection to a query, which was fine, I cleaned toilets, again, fine, and did a bunch of laundry. I'm not complaining because those things are reality but I did begin to see how your brain gets jumbled up with that kind of crap (for which you don't really need your brain), and it's hard to think about writing. I need to learn how to turn that stuff on and off in my head, so it doesn't torment me, you know?

I think I'm going to work on magazine work until NaNoWriMo which I pledge to do this year. Anyone want to join me on that? I think it would be fun to have some co-NaNoWriMo friends. Anyone who wants to do it with me, leave a comment and we'll get a band together.

Today I will be writing (drumroll, please) a grocery list, a letter to my daughter at camp, a critique to a member of my critique group, and a menu for what I'm going to cook for company who comes tomorrow. Ta da! But that is writing all the same, is it not?

For once in my life, I have all these wonderful people willing to read and consider my manuscripts but now nothing seems good enough for their eyes. I don't even want to rework anything pre-Chautauqua because I know I can do better. My mentor said that's silly, that I should never just pitch anything, not that I would delete anything, but that's the place I'm in. Any Chautauquans in the same mindset?

I feel like I'm in therapy and you all are listening intently, my faithful shrink. I'm dying for you to speak, to answer, to liven up this post, but there you sit, silent. So the longer I ramble, the worse it gets, just because I have nothing else to say. So I think it's time for me to get off this dead horse for now. And I'll connect with you later. If you found this post painfully boring and misdirected, then I succeeded in letting you in to how I feel today. xoxox