Nationals and Agent Appointments

I’ve decided to bite the bullet this year and sign up (or at least try to) for an agent appointment at Nationals. Yeah, okay, I’m going to need to majorly shore up my writer self-confidence, kill the butterflies that’ll inevitably be fluttering around in my stomach, and try not to panic about the pitch, but I think I can do it.

Yeesh. Just saying that makes me break out in a cold sweat…

Okay, deep breath. Repeat after me: I can do this. What doesn’t kill me only makes me stronger. I am woman, hear me roar. I have a whole slew of cliches, and I’m not afraid to use them.

Of course, I have to actually log in on the RWA National site before I can sign up. No easy feat thus far. The website must be swamped because I still haven’t been able to get past the Member Login page. I am resisting the urge to go all Office Space on the computer. It’s not the computer’s fault, it’s the internet’s, and how can anyone go Office Space on the internet ether? Maybe I can take a cardboard box, write “Internet” on it, and then proceed to beat that into submission with my baseball bat.

Anyway, on to updates. As my mother reminded me last night, all she wants for her birthday/Christmas/Mother’s Day/Easter/Administration Professionals’ Appreciation Day/Halloween/etc. is for me to get published (which I both love and hate her for), I’ve gone back to CAROLINA to finish up the last 50+ pages of revisions. I’ll ignore the fact that I’ve already decided to back in and layer in another set of revisions until I get the first rounds down and find myself a couple of victims who’re willing to give me their two cents, after which I’ll decide how much more I really need to tweak.

I worked on the new story, which I’m calling SIX GUN QUOTA (SGQ) for now–not sure why–and I finally got enough of it out that I was able to set it aside and go back to BEAR. Granted, I only managed less than a 1,000 words of BEAR, but still. The story feels renewed to me, and I know it’s time to shove my characters out of their literal comfort zone and into the world unknown. (This is where I laugh evilly as I force the hero and heroine both to reevaluate their entire belief system.) If I can at least get the rough draft done by Nationals, I’ll see if I can’t come up with a pitch for BEAR, too. You know, just in case. *Grins*

Though I don’t know how the hell to sum it up. Outside my straight-up contemporary comedies, I don’t know how to explain the stuff I write. Oh well. One step at a time, Nicole. One step at a time…