As most writers do, for every project I complete, I have a backlog of others that I’ve been researching, outlining, cogitating upon.

Now, the next book I’ve chosen to focus on from my holding pen happens to be in the genre of youth fantasy, which is a departure from my first two novels, to say the very least.

I have been sharing some of my thoughts for the book with my daughter, who is eagerly awaiting the first chapter. We sat at her brother’s soccer practice last weekend, chatting animatedly about characters and background, completely oblivious to the curious stares of other parents listening in on our conversation.

It hadn’t occurred to me until a phone call to the library yesterday just how bizarre we must have sounded. I was trying to locate a children’s book to read to my older son’s class, and had one in mind that we’d enjoyed immensely over the summer. The problem was that I couldn’t remember the title or the author, so I was attempting to describe the plot to the incredibly patient librarian on the line:

“There’s this really short godmother, I think she’s Yiddish or something, ’cause it looks like she’s wearing a babushka. There’s a sleeping princess who can only be awakened by a perfect peach, and the godmother doesn’t like either of the peasant woman’s 2 older sons, because they’re rude to her in the forest, so she sabotages their quest for the perfect peach. But she likes the youngest one, so she gives him a magic flute which he can use to summon all 100 of  the king’s rabbits at once for the stew, and if he doesn’t lose one, he gets a chance to save the princess.”

The librarian paused for a moment, allowing me the opportunity to replay in my head what I’d just said to her, and as I did, it occurred to me how crazy I sounded.

After reassuring her that I was not, in fact, on crack, and that this was a real book, I tried to describe the cover to her. Taking down my information, she assured me she’d do her best to find it.

After I hung up, I shook my head ruefully, thinking about how my description of that far-out story must have sounded to her. I held out little hope of anyone being able to make enough sense of those plot points to identify the work in question.

But I had underestimated the librarian: she called me less than fifteen minutes later with the title and author and offered to place a hold on it for me.

“I’m so glad you found it! Otherwise you might have thought you were talking to a crazy person!” I laughed.

“Not at all,” she replied, “That’s actually pretty tame for a children’s book plot.”

The lesson I’m going to keep in mind as I begin my next book is that often, the things that seem the craziest to adults are  the very things that children find the most endearing and imaginative. Those are the things that invite them to open a book in the first place.

As for my novel, I did take a break yesterday, but I spent it playing Chutes & Ladders with my kids instead of cleaning out the refrigerator or catching up on laundry. Today’s another day.

It is finished! Yes, my novel!

I felt it in my bones that today would be, had to be, The Day, and so it was. I have been sitting at my keyboard for the last six hours in a forced march to cross the finish line, and I am done.

I know that writing the book is only a part of the battle to getting published and that there are many more hills for me to climb on the next leg of this journey: I know I need to work up a “job description” to find the right editor; I know I need to work on researching potential publishers and agents; I know I need to get my synopsis polished; I know I need to start working on my query letters.

But today, in celebration of having reached the end of stage one, I will do none of those things. Today, and for the rest of the day, I will devote what little energy I have left in reserve to the details of my daily life which I have been largely ignoring for the past two weeks and which blessedly will not require one iota of creativity: enough dirty laundry to clothe a small nation; a refrigerator full of leftovers needing haircuts; a week’s worth of unreturned phone calls; and a workout sorely needed.

Tomorrow I will begin again.

Well, I am fast approaching the conclusion of my novel. The work that I have done on it the past few days has brought me to a point where I believe tomorrow will see me beginning the final chapter.

I can’t explain what a strange feeling this is; I have been thinking about and living with this character in my inner life for a year now, and as I draw close to finishing her story, I feel a mixture of great anticipation and great sadness. It’s not just that this novel has as its theme something of intrinsic sadness; it’s also that I will be sad, on some level, not to be writing her anymore.

It is also a time of no small amount of fear as well. A year is a long time to devote to one specific and treasured project. Now that I have created this “baby” of mine, I must subject her to the hands of strangers, who will poke into her every nook and cranny and pronounce her viable or not. She will be cut and pasted, reworked, edited, and molded, a process that every writer knows can be painful and bruising to the ego of the Creator, and that’s just finishing school, not the Show itself.

But I know that without these “surgeries”, this baby may never have the chance to live a life outside of her Creator’s mind, so I will willingly, though worriedly, subject her to the necessary procedures. (I’m already looking for the right doctor.)

I cannot say I’m not relieved, though, to be approaching the end. There have been many times over the past year that I thought I’d never get to this moment, but here I am, head down, wind roaring in my ears, fast approaching the end of the race. Let’s just hope that this time, there’s a place for me in the winner’s circle.

I will keep you posted.

Whew–I reread yesterday’s post and I don’t care what the university thinks, I write “Depression” really well.

For those of you concerned that I mightn’t bounce back from yesterday’s devastating rejection, I am writing, first, just to be writing at all, and second, to reassure you that I am made of tougher stuff than that.

The snow, indeed, stopped falling in the night, leaving lovely huge drifts of distraction for me to shovel later today; the sun is shining brightly again through my office window; I am back at my keyboard, determined to keep on keeping on.

A million years ago when I was still a teacher, I used to say that it was so hard to know if you were doing a good job, because the opportunities to see your “finished product” (a happy and successful former student) came so rarely. Those times when a newly-minted young adult stopped by or wrote to me to tell me how they were doing were precious precisely because of their rarity.

At least as a teacher, you have the opportunity to see the faces of those you are hoping to touch (figuratively, not literally, of course). You have the chance to see the lightbulbs snapping to life over students’ heads, and you know that you are making a difference, at least at that moment.

But as a writer, unless and until you gain a following, you operate in a vacuum, where the only sounds you hear are those of your own words bouncing back to you. It’s difficult to know for sure if what you are writing is good and true, or merely sound and vibration. Those crystal clear moments of feedback that arrive in the form of rejection letters, anonymous postings to Web sites, or words of advice from your well-respected mentors are sometimes the only indicator you have of whether or not what you are doing is worth doing at all.

Then again, I have to remind myself occasionally, for whom am I writing? Do I write for myself? Am I writing for an audience? I think it is some combination of the two. I will write, always, for myself, because there are thoughts and visions that swirl around the inside of my head, darkening and coalescing and keeping me awake at night with their intense conversations, that simply must come out.

But the simple fact is, yes, I want someone else out there to read what I have written, to experience what I have wrought, and to share in that world with me.

So–today, I am back in the saddle again. As I wrote to a friend, I can’t be bucked off that easily, but neither can I deny that falling certainly did smart. 

No one is quite rid of me yet.

A dream died today. I don’t know how else to put it. A vision of a possible future I had cherished, had longed for, worked for, shared my hopes for with friends and family alike, died a sudden and most unexpected death. Today–this cruel day when that tease,  Spring, darted back into the frozen woods of my longing, mocking me for thinking that She had returned–on this blank and gray day, I am destroyed.

For those of you following my path with interest (all three or four of you), I received my Masters Program rejection letter today. Having been accepted into a previous program in another state, I guess I had built it up in my mind already that acceptance here must then be a surety. I was marking each day off my calendar in blue, that eternal shade of optimism, waiting for the Day I Would Find Out. And it is here, and I have found out, and I am lost.

The letter referenced intense competition, even kindly pointed out the vast number of applicants (350) competing for such an infinitesimally small number of spaces (12). But that means nothing to someone who is not one of the Twelve (ask Judas what it felt like to be applicant number 13.) 

This wasn’t like receiving a rejection letter from a publishing company; I can laugh those off with one arm tied behind my back. This was like having the next two years of my life carpet-bombed. I’d already made plans; I’d already been working out logistics, and finances, and now, there is nothing, just an endless crater of What-Do-I-Do-Now?

I know, I’m taking this hard, but I only opened the letter half an hour ago, and have yet to make it through all the official Stages of Grief that accompany a death in the family. Denial: They must have made a mistake and sent this letter to the wrong address. Pain: It hurts to be conscious. Anger: Those who can’t write teach writing courses! (apologies to those professors, and you know who you are, C.S., who are the exceptions to that angry statement. Remember that people often say things in anger that they do not necessarily mean.) Depression: I am a poor writer, I will always be a poor writer, and I had no possible reason to think that anyone would ever think otherwise. I am defeated.

Upward turn, reconstruction, and acceptance are the stages that are supposed to follow, but I think since I barreled through the first four stages simultaneously (Call me a prodigy) I sense that it might take a while yet for me to start looking on the sunny side of things.

What now? Do I chalk it up to intense competition this year, and apply again, perhaps somewhere else? Do I scoff at their rejection, and make myself a cheering list of all the fabulous writers who not only do not have M.F.A.s but who make fun of people who do? 

Or do I take this as a sign that I wasn’t good enough…do I turn in my keyboard and my thesaurus?

I am not sure at the moment. Perhaps tomorrow, when the snow has stopped falling and I’ve managed to work past these first gut-wrenching hours of disappointment, I will have an answer. After all, tomorrow is another day…

And today, oddly enough, was such a good day of work on my novel. Strange irony.  Perhaps it wasn’t as good as I thought.