Holes to Fill and Spiritual Spackle

Yin/yang, feng shui...Homeostasis. Osmosis.

These all have something in common - they are all looking to create a balance.

We all have holes. Some days, mine feel bigger than others. Filling them with food, smoking, drinking, yelling...kleptomania...is how people cope. Filling holes in our ragged psyches.

It's interesting that so many different cultures have the same realization that we all have places that need spiritual spackle. The most peculiar aspect is trying to figure out how all the damn holes got there!

So, how does one constructively fill them in? I'll let you know when I figure it out.

Fundie rant: It's also interesting that, just because it doesn't come labeled with a cross, my mom finds the yin/yang thing evil. My mom is still pushing Afrin. Watch for her on a playground near you.

Despite the revolving characters in my life, Christmas did a lot of spiritual spackling for me. I feel blessed. I still miss Mr. Dawg. I swear, I never think of my animals as children, but, WOW. His loss still stings. Of course, Mr. Dawg was never an ungrateful brat on whom you spent a significant portion of your income only to have him whine because his food came in the blue bag, not the black one, or flop on the floor and feign death because *gasp* you always like the cat more. I still hear jingling and look for him to come. It's very strange to still be getting used to our next dog. She's neurotic as hell but cute as hell, and that makes up for it.

In the same vein as spiritual conditions...I think I have the spiritual equivalent of penis envy.

I'd like to call it...

FACEBOOK ENVY.

It's a condition where you look at your sister's friends and then yours. She has 800+. You have >40. Okay, >30. And some of these old friends won't even answer my request. They're probably saying, "Oh, HELL no" or "Who the fuck is this?"

I need to get out of the house and make more friends, obviously. I'm also stalking authors on twitter. Some of them are quite chatty. It's not stalking so much as seeing their writing patterns. I've found a few and watch the tweets come in. I'm analyzing data as I go, I guess. See if it helps.
I also got a subliminal messaging program. OMG, isn't that too funny? I haven't set it up yet, but

I'll let you know if I write more with prompting...or shop while clucking like a chicken.

If I see a difference, maybe I'll install it on all the other computers in the house and subliminally make them clean the whole thing.

"Mom, it's total B.S. I mean, I'm like playing the game and, suddenly, I get this weird urge to clean the lint trap. I mean, weird, yeah? How do you get from slam dunk to lint trap?"

"Mom, every time I think of Mario on the Wii, I want to catch up on homework. I'm drawing mushrooms in the margins of all my notebooks!"

So, I'm spending my time wondering what kind of messages to send myself. Here's my ideas:

1. Finish work so you can play!

2. Insert character/book here - kind of sublimate character development while working??

3. List of 15 fresh fruits/veggies??? Avoid food?

I hope I can make the messages change to accommodate different times of the 24-hour cycle. Then, I will add a chore an hour or something, or tell myself to think about dinner ingredients.

If it works at all.

I HAVE UPDATED THE GLOSSARY. I will have to blog soon about my continuing beefs with Ovis Ovis and Heifer.

Harsh Truths

I am a unique writer.

It still doesn't mean that what I have isn't crap.

In many respects, it is. In many respects, it isn't.

However, if you want to get published, what I have written ain't what they want.

Which means rip to shreds, prune, and realize what I have isn't marketable.

Or start over. Give them what they want.

I do write for the love of it. I do. I also realize that what I write in context and conveyance is better than a lot of drivel on the shelves. However, there's a reason why that drivel is on the shelves and I'm not.

A) They had what the agent wanted, which is what the agent thought would make money AND could be sold to a publisher, and

B) They had the agent.

There are a lot of places that do the unsolicited MSs. They are easily found.

I, however, have a lot of works in progress. It means that maybe my first few finished babies aren't all that finished. No problem. I can do that or choose a project I have outlined that will fit, low and behold, the basic premise of a query letter.

Let's face it. If it can't be queried properly, it can't sell.

Wow.

Face it - I'm enlightened.

I have a plot. It has a hook. It has all the components of a novel, but can I point it out in a coherent fashion?

Find a sample query letter. Miss Snark, although she no longer does the blogging, has graciously left the blog up for us who are lost.

I found her here: http://agentquery.com/

It's been humbling.

I'm not going to quit. Nope. I'm just going to slack and hash a few things, and start my new stuff with a completely different approach.

I am an author, dammit. I just have to prove it :)