It’s a Sunday.  I hope you’re all out enjoying the last bits of summer.  If not, maybe this post will drive you outside with its complete lack of value to anyone except me.  (Surrogate therapy is fantastic.  Today  you all get to be my very public journal.)

So, yesterday I went and had an 80 minute hot stone massage.  And, sadly, it didn’t even make a dent in my stress level.  (I apologized to the massage therapist for being so tense.  That’s how bad it was.)  But that’s where my mind is these days.  (Interestingly, it did help free up my mind a bit and I think I ended up with three new story ideas.)

Why am I stressed?  I think I’ve sold my house.  If I have, then I need to pack up a lot of stuff and get rid of even more stuff in the next two and a half weeks.  We’re in the midst of the inspection process and I should have known by Friday what the buyer’s issues were and we should have this all resolved by tomorrow, but it sounds like we might not.

So, do I start packing, because I kind of need all the time I can get, and risk the deal falling through and the house not looking near as nice because crap is off the walls and off the bookshelves, etc.?  Or do I wait and thereby find myself packing until 4 AM the day before I move?

The other fun part of this (and the part I’ve alluded to before) is I don’t think I can move where I was going to.  So, I had everything lined up towards one goal – I knew what I needed to keep, what I needed to get rid of, and where I was going to be sleeping once this all closed.  Now, that’s almost certainly not happening.  Of course, it’s not 100% no yet, so there’s always this chance that I’ll act as if it isn’t going to happen and then it does come through and then I’m reversing direction yet again.

(And the person driving all of that bit is the world’s biggest ass.  I seldom wish bad things on people, but if this person were hit by a bus tomorrow I’d probably be more pleased than upset.)

Add to that my decision that I will finalize the novel and sub it to agents and the Harper Voyager open call in October.  Of course, this decision brings down a world of uncertainty and doubt.  It’s my first novel.  First novels are supposed to suck.  They’re supposed to be so bad that you live the rest of your life in fear that someone will find it and publish it and thereby ruin your hard-earned authorial reputation.

But I think it’s publishable.  So, I’m about to get the cosmic reality check, slapdown, the truth hurts, comeuppance.  But I’m going to do this damn it.  Because the only way I can guarantee not getting published is not subbing the thing anywhere (and not self-pubbing, of course).

There’s only one sure-fire way to lose, and that’s not making it to the finish.  So, damn it, I’m going to make it to that finish line even if I have to crawl across it five hours after all the spectators have gone home.

OK.  So, in payment for your imaginary listening to my problems, here are a few fun links:

Advice for the single people over 40…from Cranky and Taxing.  (I’m not over 40 yet, but I still feel like this applies even now.)

We’re All Mad Here from Kory Stamper (Stick with this one past the first few paragraphs.  Trust me, the letters and answers to them are worth waiting for.)

25 Bad Writer Behaviors from terribleminds (Some real, honest writerly advice for those of you who write and wanted value out of my post.)