Muddling Along...

Well, so much for 'I'll be posting this week since I won't be at work'... funny how that's turned out. I will get this one sad scrawny little dribble out, though. Even if it doesn't account for much.

Ah, this week. This first strange 'I no longer work where I ALWAYS worked week'.

Let's recap:

Monday, the power went out because (hold your breath!) it snowed a whopping 4 inches... this, after the last storm took out every tree in the tri-state area. But at least it was only off for a matter of hours, cutting out at around 9am and coming back around 4. But I was still a grumpy mess for the day.

Tuesday, I spent recovering from Monday. This involved having the plug of the electric fireplace explode and melt creating a physical mess, and psychological nightmare for me (if you know me, you'll know I'm terrified of fire) and that had to be addressed and the fireplace replaced which I managed with the help of my sister. Then in late afternoon, I realized Saida (big old bony thoroughbred mare) was acting colicky. You might remember that at the first of the month, I lost my beloved Di to torsion colic. Needless to say, I verged on meltdown, seeing Saida displaying similar symptoms. I'm STILL twitchy. However, once dosed with banamine and xylaxine, Saida reacted the way you WANT them too, settling down and then going back to her usual self as the drugs wore off. Run of the mill tummy ache. Still, it was a rough night for me, waiting for something horrible to suddenly happen.

Wednesday was spent staring anxiously out into the field at two horses and a donkey who were acting completely normally. I did manage to go out to breakfast with my Dad and write some, but fretted on and off over the blissfully oblivious Saida. It's SO HARD not to be pensive this close on the heels of losing Di.

Today, I wrote some more on my new WIP, Shed The Wind, which doesn't quite know if it wants to be contemp, or magical realism... and wistfully peeked in over at the big PitchMadness hoopla going on, wishing someone was requesting something from me. I'm SO HAPPY for all of those who are competing!!! May they ALL get requests! I was going to try and get into the PitMad event, but that might be sidetracked because my phone has suddenly decided that its foray into first the lake and then the (clean) toilet last week has, in fact, had some sort of affect on it. So unless there's a miracle, I'll be talking with AT&T tomorrow, and possibly sending the phone off to be salvaged or replaced. I have insurance on it, but I'm sure I'm going to lose money.

Oh well. Things could be worse. I can't say that I haven't been occupied this week! And I've gotten some writing done, which makes me very happy.

Now, a question: I have a number of queries out, but the 10th or so of April will mark the one month time frame for the most recent of the queries. As of right now, I've heard nothing from anyone, so I'm assuming they're rejections. Presuming that I hear nothing by the 10th (one of the agent replies to all, but almost always within a month, so if I don't hear from him, I'll figure he's super busy, and I've been set aside to be rejected later, which is okay) I was considering resubmitting to Entangled Publishing. This is GONE MISSING GIRL, my contemp YA, and it was already requested, then rejected with feedback from Entangled. It wasn't a revise and resub, but they said that if I addressed their issues, they'd be happy to see it again.

Subbing directly to publishers is not what I ever thought I'd do. I worry about my ability to agent myself, and manage myself. But I'm at a point where the dystopian, despite it's numerous requests had fallen into the 'we're over it' category, and the contemp which has gotten so much attention from pitches and garnered interest via queries has never gotten much interest beyond that. My Beauty and the Beast retelling isn't nearly as 'out there' different as something like Cinder, or Scarlett (EPIC LOVE FOR THEM) and thusly seems to have a slim chance of becoming some dramatic breakout agent-snagger.

So should I go out on this strangely shape and unfamiliar limb of subbing to publishing houses? Well, to Entangled, specifically. I'm not ready to sub widely to houses yet. But what say you? Opinions?