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The Very Strange Day
By Nancy Lindquist | March 14, 2007
I had a bad run yesterday afternoon. It was in the seventies and I’ve been running in temps in the forties. I was not ready for the higher temperatures. Mani-Nana wasn’t either. A mile and a half into it, we were both hot and ready to go home. Then, we almost got killed by an idiot kid in a big green van. To add insult to my injuries, the passenger flipped me off and shouted, “Fatty” out the window. I was not in a good mood.
I don’t even want to go into almost crushing my Pomeranian when I moved my chair. He’s not going to sleep there anymore. Sorry, Bear. Poor little guy.
When I got home from my run I checked my e-mail. I had about fifty messages in my inbox. The, “Lady Aibell Press” letter caught my eye right away. I’d submitted a story to them that someone else rejected. I picked my wounded soul off the floor, cleaned the story up and submitted it to Lady Aibell. Apparently the clean up worked. They bought the story.
I should have been jumping up and down, but I felt pretty blah about it. I chalked it up to being grumpy after almost being mangled by the van and took my shower.
Later that night I noticed a letter from a publisher in my in-box. I didn’t think much of it. I figured it was the Lady Aibell contract. My husband said, “so, what does Loose ID have to say?”
Loose ID?
Oh. It’s from Loose ID.
I closed my eyes and clicked on it. After the rejection of a few weeks before I am much more cautious about opening mail from publishers. They bought, “You Have the Right to Fall in Love.”
I should have been jumping up and down. I wasn’t. Why not?
I spent the better part of the night thinking about it and came to a two part answer.
1. My family does not blink when I sell a story. Never have. It’s all sort of a forced, “Great” from Gene. Not that he’s not happy for me. He is. He just has an inability to be enthusiastic. I think he was off eating junk food when he was supposed to get his enthusiasm chip.
2. When a story is done, it’s done. I kiss it goodbye, hit the send button and start working on the next one. For me, finishing what I started is the big accomplishment.
My old editor at Samhain Publishing told me to have champagne, when my first book came out. I didn’t even have chocolate. Nothing. I felt good about it and I watched for reviews, but that was about it. There was no jumping up and down, no husband taking me to dinner, nada. I suppose there should have been, but I’m the planner in the group. If there’s going to be a celebration I have to set it up and I don’t want to set up my own parties. It feels sort of pathetic to me.
So I sold two books yesterday. Good for me. Now what do I do about my futuristic threesome?
