I don’t get to go to writing group next week because Kiki has a band concert. This makes me sad. It is part of a larger disapointment, not with the writing group, but with myself. The group meets every week. A couple of the writers submit writing for every meeting. I don’t. I wish I could. I would love to submit and get feedback each week. I simply don’t write fast enough for that. I am capable of writing that fast, but I have other priorities. The things I am putting before writing really are more important to me, but I still grieve that I can’t get more writing done. I want to submit and rewrite and then send things off to editors. I want to write a book that other people really believe in, and are dying to see published.
Hmm. I’ve kind of done that. I wrote a picture book and found an amazing illustrator. The project is almost ready to go to press, but we decided to give it a shot at traditional publication before self publishing. The agent said no, and I havent’ heard back from the editor. It is about time to move this project forward. Because it resides in limbo, I keep forgetting that I can count the project as an accomplishment. It doesn’t feel real until I can hold it in my hands. The same can be said of my one short story sale which won’t see print for more than a year from now. I want something I can hold in my hand and be amazed that I actually wrote it and it exists. I think I’ll have a little of that with Tub of Happiness because I made many of the layout decisions. I’ll almost certainly feel that way about The Terraport Wars because I’ll be doing all of the layout work. Why is it so easy for me to mentally discount my own triumphs?
Anyway, I’ll miss writer’s group this week. I’ve already got plans for what to submit for next week. And I need to get to work writing stuff to submit for the weeks after that.