The Death of a Story....

Ok, I know. The stories we write don't really die but I wanted something dramatic for the title of the post.

Warning: Not a very happy post.

I recieved an R on my Desire full last week. After the heartbreaking first evening when I cried-

I'm a big crier, thrower and breaker of things (though I'm trying to cut down on that because my 2 year old thinks it's a cool thing to do) and then comes stomping around the house, cursing all things in the universe that have conspired to be unfair to me, egotistical much?

- having a house full of guests the last week helped in some way to numb it, I think.

Although, we can't completely escape it, can we? It's always in the back of your mind like

that niggling tooth ache. Only instead of what did I overindulge on, it's what did I do wrong among the gazillion things that could be wrong on a full manuscript?

This was my first official submission through the slush pile. I worked very extensively on the full, rewriting part of it several times and now,I have my first official R.

I guess I should be happy that it's not a form R becuase I did recieve feedback although I'm still

in the 'what does that mean? and how am I suppposed to correct that' stage. And this is the part that bothers me the most. Shouldn't feedback help you understand where you went wrong? Or could it be that I'm being extra mulish and refusing to see what's right there in front of me?

I think I need some tough love from my CPs and once I have sucked it up, I will post it to them to see if they can shed some more light on it.

I definitely feel like I've been thrown for a loop. And what bothers me, is that I don't have

anything ready now to immediately submit to the Desire line, because I figured I would have to wait at least 3 months before I heard on a full request.

I heard in 2 days over a month.

So not only does that mean I won't submit anything until I write a full novel which could take any amount of time, the R has also majorly sucked out my momentum and energy for the ongoing WIP which has 38k and which I was determined to finish by now.

So basically, I'm feeling very unmotivated and sluggish. And the day job and being 7 months pregnant is not helping.

But it's also a threatening timeline.

I have to get something ready for both Presents and Desire subs before the baby comes. Or else it will be November or December before I can type two lucid lines together, much less spin a good story.

So, I'm allowing myself 2, maybe, 3 more days of wallowing in misery before I get my head back into the current WIP and repeat all over.

Write, Revise, Submit.

Meanwhile, if anyone knows a magic trick that can make the above process NOT so emotionally draining, please let me know.

Please, anyone?