A Friday Free-for-All Entry

“You have not had sex with Russian girl? Come to us and you shall have it!” Usually I barely glance at the messages in my spam folder, but this one caught my eye. I can almost hear someone whispering it in a Russian accent. I picture the speaker as Boris from the James Bond movie GoldenEye–you know the guy: He figures out some password or other geeky problem, then shouts “I am INVIN-CIBLE!”…And then he’s iced in place by a high-tech blasty-thing, fists frozen high in the air from victory.

Some of my recent experiences remind me of Boris. I’m flying high on the positive response from an agent…and then I find slugs binging on my romaine. Or I finally manage to squeeze back into a pair of old pants…and then the agent writes back with a no, thanks. Or I get to Round 2 of the Amazon contest…what’s next? I am full of trepidation. Illness? Injury? Stain on favorite sweater? Will it be major, or minor?

I guess it might come down to whether I believe the universe operates on balance. For every positive, there must be a negative. For every good, a bad. For every James Bond, a Dr. No. I guess that depends on God’s plan–at least that’s what I believe. I just tried to think of a counter-example in the world of rejection letters. There isn’t always a correlating positive for negative in querying for a novel. Usually it’s a whole lot of negative responses with the very rare positive response. BUT that one positive outweighs, and, I hope, nullifies the negatives. You just have to get there, to that positive.

And then, once you get the positive response, and the publisher, there are probably negative reviews. Unless you’ve written The Hunger Games, in which case, maybe there are other negatives going on in your life. But I’m not spiteful enough to wish that on anyone. Well, maybe that person who cut me off in the library parking lot the other day….

This entry has gone in a completely different direction from the intended. Not that I intend much for the Friday Free-for-Alls. But I’m at a good ending point for this entry, since I’m not getting that hour I wrote about on Wednesday. Z spent a few minutes “reading” my Wicked Spanish dictionary and singing along with Anne Murray to “You Are My Sunshine,” but since then she has smashed her finger in the desk drawer, tripped over a Duplo, and had a dirty diaper.

Until Monday, then!