Life is sometimes really weird and you get what you need in ways you never imagined.
Yesterday, I received six different rejection letters from a variety of projects; some that were distant and others that were very close to my heart. I have always suspected that rejection letters travel together in a huddled murder like crows.
Bwa-ha-ha! We shall dash your dreams one at a time.
This is not the atypical afternoon for a writer. However, I felt unusually broken about the rejections this time around.
I suspect this mental state had something to do with spending three hours creating sample code for REST APIs during my day job. My wife was sick enough that she stayed home and thus I was worried for her health.
Typically, I commute home after work with my wife. Yesterday, I rode the bus home.
Someone on the bus stank. It was as though I were being punished by a cruel and merciless god.
I wondered if Neil Gaiman ever had to write the bus under conditions such as this. The idea made me giggle slightly and I wondered what sort of story he would write afterwards. I took detailed notes.
I watched part of Almost Famous while I ate dinner. It was the scene where
the band is on the bus singing Tiny Dancer and it make me smile just a little.
Sometimes, you just have to surrender to the moment and just relax. I kissed my lovely wife and then napped. I woke late in the night and discovered this video.
Curse you, Gaiman! You can make anything look cool! My head was clear. The weight was gone. Sometimes, I think life would be so much better if people napped more when they were tired.
Encouraged, I braved my laptop once more and checked my email. There were a number of pleasant surprises awaiting me:
- Edits from Justin Achilli for one of my chapters in the upcoming Hunters Hunted 2. This has been a fun and classy experience on a game that I have loved for twenty years. (Thank you, Justin!)
- An Non-Disclosure Agreement for a classic property that I have loved for a very long time.
- An invitation to a very awesome anthology.
Sometimes, it can be difficult to see how far you've come when you are only glancing down at the work ahead of you and I think I needed to remind myself of that just a little.
This has been a glorious year for my writing career and it is possible that next year will be even better. Here are some of the highlights:
- I've grown as a writer. I've managed to make a couple of sales that I've very proud of. You can see some of my upcoming fiction projects on my Future Publications page.
- I've managed to start working with five different famous IPs this year. I was just asked if I was interested in helping out with a sixth one this afternoon.
- A partial manuscript of my novel The Highway West is being reviewed by an excellent publishing company. (Fingers Crossed)
I am healthy. The love of my life, Lisa, is also healthy. We belong to a wonderful circle of friends and family. We both have good jobs. Life is fairly good.
I can't remember why everything seemed so horrible yesterday.
At the end of this month, I'll be attending
Atlanta By Night. If you are a fan of Vampire: The Masquerade and will be in the Atlanta area, I recommend that you check it out.
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