Well, after taking a week, more or less, to catch up on my responsibilities as a domestic goddess (stop laughing right now) I’m back to the work of trying to get my novel published. At this point, that translates to total drudgery: editing, passing it by friends and family, more editing, researching Markets and Agents and Publishers, oh, my.

You know, I read somewhere once that it takes a special kind of crazy person to actually complete a novel. I don’t think I’m going out on a limb here by asserting that that’s only half of a writer’s insanity plea: if you’re not already crazy from writing the book, then the massive amounts of work required to try to get it in front of the right publisher will finish the job nicely.

I have been sitting at my computer for three hours straight, and have done nothing but edit, research, create basic initial synopses, and rough out potential queries. I have to say, I was actually happy to take a break from doing that to visit my friendly neighborhood freelance job site (Whorelance, I saw one fellow writer call it) to try to track down some freelance work that will actually pay. No, I don’t get credit for ghostwriting, thank you very much for pointing that out, but at least they pay–well, some of the time.

Back when I was a teacher and had to do 12-page district applications (complete with essay questions, no less–can I put those in my portfolio?) to find a job, I thought that was a time-consuming process, but schools have nuthin’ on literary agents and publishing houses for making you jump through inexplicably complicated and time-consuming sets of hoops.

I know, whine, whine, whine–what can I say? Two more sub-zero days in Minnesota this week (I don’t care if the sun is out or not–it’s cold!) and my resolve to give up negativity for Lent has frozen to death.  Hopefully it’ll thaw out this weekend. In the meantime, I’ll just keep plugging away and hope that somebody puts me out of my misery (Hey! Figuratively, not literally!) soon. Anybody got an extra space heater?