Are you there God? It's me Margaret...I mean Jennie

Well it's Thursday and I have not worked out since Saturday. ARGH.  I am feeling better today, but as I am not 100% I am not doing anything until I am good.  My goal is to walk on Saturday.  Don't panic, I am not crazy and won't go for anything more than 5 miles.  I'm not going to overdue it, but the Marathon is just over 6 weeks away and I can't let a little allergy attack set me back.

It's kind of been a blessing in disguise.  I have been forced to stay in at lunch and read.  I'm enjoying the book I am reading.  Ironically, it is about a woman who is secretly writing a book. :-)  Sound familiar?  So do you remember when I said I had some exciting news to share?  Tony Stewart, I am still waiting for your call! :-)

My dream is to be an author.  If you started the blog at the beginning you know that I wrote a novel back in the day.  I was never able to find an agent and therefore it didn't really go anywhere.  I never lost my passion for writing though.  I started another novel and revised it later.  It's still unfinished.  I haven't given up hope though.  One day someone is going to pay me for my stories :-)  Books have been such an important part of my life (I bow to you Judy Blume!) and it would be such an honor to touch the lives of others.

I have gotten a lot of positive feedback on the blog.  So I started thinking that maybe this is the story that will make a good book.  I'm used to writing fiction though.  This is going to be a whole different ride.  Maybe I'm crazy, but maybe I'm supposed to put myself out there to inspire and motivate more people.  So I started writing.  Last week I started sending out query letters to agents.  In general the response time is 3-4 months.  I figured I had a lot of time to polish my proposal and get my chapters fine tuned before I got any responses.  IF I got a response.

It took me two years to write that first novel.  I was so proud.  My friends and family read it and everyone liked it. I thought for sure it would get published.  And then the letters started to come in.  They weren't good. The rejections were so hard to take.  Granted, they didn't read the full manuscript, just the description of it.  It still hurt.  And I'm not going to lie, I hit the cookies with every rejection.

This time around it's a little different.  I emailed my queries (it was snail mail the first time) and this was MY story.  Not a fictional one.  So if they reject my query, they are in a sense rejecting me.  I had been wanting to do this for a long time, but you can imagine my hesitation.  Maybe it's the training for the marathon or maybe it's the smaller jeans, but I feel a little more confident in myself.   So I did it.  I put myself out there.  The next day the rejections started to come in.  My belly started to flop.  Was I ready for this?  Maybe I should have waited until after the marathon. Am I strong enough for this?

I didn't have to worry too long.  That next night I got my first request for a proposal.  Then the next day a request for the full manuscript.  And another request yesterday.  :-)  Maybe nothing will come of this.  Or maybe I am making my dreams come true.

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facebook.com/ConfessionsOfAFormerFatGir

yeah, sorry, I messed up and the "l" is missing....I need an assistant :-)

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