I'm A Finalist!

I finished the rewrite of Dark Waters a few days ago, and just felt fed up with combing that ms. Tired of reading it over and over again, searching and searching. Tired of tweaking. Tired of not knowing what to do with it. And when I get so tired of my ms that I can't stand to look at it anymore, I want to delete it all. This is why I trunked my first ms, Until We Meet Again, so prematurely.

I had entered the beginning of Dark Waters in a contest called the Emerald City Opener. The winner will be announced at the conference I'll be attending in October. And the finalists get to have one-on-one pitches with the agent judges. I have been getting form rejection after form rejection, and I really needed this exposure for Dark Waters.

Yesterday the email came. Dear Author. Yup. I know those. It told me that I had NOT made it into the finals. I was out of the contest. I tried to keep my mind positive. At least I'd get a critique of my first page out of it--the judges comments. And then another email came. A form rejection letter from another agent. Okay. That was enough for one day.

I announced to my hubby that I was done with all this writing-to-get-published stuff. He smiled and shook his head. "Just give it a week," he said, "you'll get the itch again."

Well, today I opened my email to a, Dear Rachel. It contained many apologies and congratulations. Apparently there was a mix-up and I received the wrong email. I DID make it into the finals. I WILL have an agent judging my entry. And the winner will be announced at the conference.

Thus the roller-coaster. Now it's on its way up. At least for now.