What? There’s a fork in the road? Better pick it up before someone gets hurt [rimshot].

Sorry, I couldn’t resist—I seriously hope bad puns are not an uncontrollable side effect of all the impending changes ahead this week. What changes, you ask? Patience, my friends, patience. Submission updates first:

I haven’t sent out any additional submissions since my last post—why will shortly become clear—but I did receive 1 ½ rejection letters. No, that’s not a typo. If you want to be perfectly literal about things, then it was really 2 rejections, but I’m a fiction writer—I don’t do literal very well.

The first rejection was pretty standard—“We don’t normally write form rejection letters because we want to give you a personal touch when we reject you and your sorry piece of work, but in your case, we’re making an exception. Thanks, but this is not for us.” Meh. I’ve read worse.

The second rejection, however, thrilled me right down to the ragged toes of my fuzzy fuschia slippers (that’s why I’m only counting it as half a rejection: no crying). First, it was from my “dream agent.” Second, my dream agent clearly has the patience of a saint, because she is still corresponding with me even after I queried her three times for this book. And third—and this is huge—one line after informing me that she still didn’t feel she was the right agent for this manuscript, she wrote that she would “happily read” other material I sent to her. “Happily read!” Woohoo! That’s a door left ajar if I ever saw one. On the other hand, maybe delusions are another side effect of change? Nah. I’m sticking with huge.

Never has a rejection letter left me feeling so euphoric—and then, immediately, so panicked. Yes, panicked, because clearly, now I really need to get crackin’. But…that’s not going to be as easy tomorrow as it was yesterday.

Remember those changes I mentioned before?  Well, in addition to working on my manuscript for the last few months, I’ve also been doing some Other Writing. Writing that included, among other things, resumes, job applications, and cover letters. And that writing, as it turns out, was the more successful of the bunch, because…

I’ve got a new job.

Yay!!!!

But…I’ve got a new job.

Waaaaa!

To say I have some mixed feelings is a classic understatement: I am so thrilled about my new position (associate editor for a trade magazine) that I haven’t been able to sleep since accepting the offer. It’s exactly the job I’ve been hoping to land during all these years of freelancing. But unlike my freelancing gigs, this new one is a full-time position, which means the hours I’ve been able to while away on my own writing will now be consumed by writing for someone else.

Don’t get me wrong, this is a good thing, really. It is. (And I’m not just saying that to avoid hate mail from desperate job seekers out there). It is a good thing (ew: first puns and now I’m channeling Martha Stewart) for me to enter the corporate world. After all, it’s been more than eleven years that I’ve been at home taking care of my family and freelancing. Eleven years—has it really been that long? Of course I’ve got some mixed feelings—it’s the end of an era.

And while we’re on the subject, oy, you want to talk mixed feelings? How about this response from my youngest child: “Mom, I don’t want you to work over the summer—I’ll miss you.” Ouch. A moment of silence, please, for the author to take a deep breath and compose herself.

Thank you. I think I can type again now.

So that’s my Fork in the Road: it’s big and it’s shiny, but it’s some got really sharp tines. And there it looms, smack dab in the middle of my road, turning me away from the path I was on and nudging me onto a strange new one, whispering smugly “You always knew this day would come, didn’t you?” Okay, that turned out a little more mixed than I intended. Ugh.

I’m happy! I’m happy! I’m happy! There—balance restored.

Well, we all know what they say about two roads diverging, don’t we. So–Here’s to my new, unexplored road—wish me luck!