He Was Found in the Wreck With His Hand on the Throttle, Scalded to Death by the Steam....

Five points to whoever recognized that line as being from 'The Wreck of Old 97'! Ok, so no one's been scalded. At least not to death. But I HAVE come to a few conclusions recently. One of them is that I will NEVER, no matter how hard I might try, make it as a barista. It's just not in my cards. Ever. Why, you ask? Well, the answer is simple, considering that our little farm coffee pot manages to fry some part of my body on a daily basis, I just don't see barista in my near future. I mean, seriously, I've burned my ARMPIT. How does someone manage that??? An ARMPIT for crying bananas. Welcome to my life.

The other conclusion that I've come to, and this one is a little less amusing, if not exactly 'woe as me over the cliff I go' hair rendingly dramatic. The conclusion is this: I am not happy at this point in my life. The reason that I am not happy at this point in my life is that I feel as though my writing is 'going nowhere'. I put the 'going nowhere' in quotations because it isn't really a physiological truth. Your writing is never stagnant. Never. No matter how unchanged you perceive it to be, it is, in truth, progressing. It just doesn't always feel that way to YOU. *sigh* This is a normal thing for anyone who's trying to break into the commercial writing industry. I know it's normal because I've had authors (successful authors) hug me and tell me it's normal. But they couldn't tell me exactly how it was going to feel, because you can't describe a feeling like that to someone who hasn't felt it. Now I know. And I'm done with knowing how it feels to think that no one, nowhere established in the industry has any faith or interest in you. I'd say I never needed to know what it was like to feel this way, but I think you do need to know, so that when you HAVE made it into the industry, you have compassion for all of those frustrated hopefuls. And on that note THANK YOU to every successful author, agent, editor, and anyone else in the industry who has been kind and supportive to me. I would not be where I am, trudging onward towards my goal if not for all of you :)

So, the question is, how do I adapt to this unhappy stage? To start, I think I have to let go of EVERNOW. I don't mean actually let go. But it might be time to stop querying it. Stop entering it in contests (although I'm still in Brenda's 'It was a dark and stormy night' blogfest/contest) stop looking for agents who are seeking dystopian work. Stop (for now) working on the companion novel. Just stop. I don't want to stop. I think Evernow says something. Especially with the world today, I think a book about a girl who refuses to settle for warfare and instead struggles for peace with a race unlike her own is a book kids should read. But I will stop. For now. And I'll work on something else. Red Chief most likely. I do love my pain in the ass, back-talking to Faeries, bad tempered Eimhear, and I think that it could be commercially successful too. So, onward! Although I admit that I'll glance back over my shoulder more than once...

What about you? Does anyone out there (published or not) have a book that they think will actually have a good impact on people reading it? Anybody (published or soon to be) have a book that is not slated for publication that they would sell a kidney to get into print simply because they believe in it?