Yes! I finally completed the last bits of my manuscript revision, and I have to say, I am so much happier with the final product. So here I go again, pounding the virtual pavement to try to find agents and publishers who like it as much as I do.

I will now settle back into the familiar grind of researching agents and publishers, tailoring queries and proposals and synopses and sample chapters to their every whim, putting together book packages, and waiting, waiting, waiting. (Tom Petty was so right.)

Yes, it is so satisfying to be able to move on to the next steps. But the best thing about finishing this revision–which, although it was sorely needed, was a real grind–is that now I will actually be able to step out of Revision Land and return to the place I really love: Creation Land.

I’ve been sitting on five chapters of my next manuscript for months now, and between my homework for my classes, the revision, and other freelance projects that came up along the way, I haven’t written a single new word for it. Not one! Horrible, I know. I think my daughter (who has graciously volunteered to be my guinea pig–I mean First Reader) has given up on ever seeing another chapter.

But I have spring in my veins now, and that always gives me such a tremendous boost–I feel like I’ve been launched out of a cannon (which is why I was able to wrap that revision up yesterday).  Today, I will dust off that new manuscript file, give it a little bit of a polish and shine, and start building the rest of it, one squeaky page at a time.

Remember my last post about windows and doors? Found one…

As I’ve been waiting to hear about grad school the last couple agonizing weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about opportunities and how and when they present themselves. I borrowed the title for this post from that old proverb “Whenever God closes a door, he usually opens a window somewhere else.”

I still haven’t heard anything yet, though given that there is no mail delivery on Sundays, my paranoia has been able to rest for a day. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been watching the calendar closely. I mean, tomorrow’s March 1st, already! Shouldn’t I have heard something by now? I keep wondering what that means, manipulating various scenarios in my head to drive myself even crazier: “They said mid-March, but last year it was late February. I bet you find out early if you’ve been rejected right away–I bet your letter will come Monday.” Or, “Of course you haven’t heard anything yet–they want to let the Chosen Ones know first, so the fact that your letter hasn’t come yet is just proof that you didn’t get in. You’ll probably find out on March 15–those bastards read Shakespeare, after all.”

Sigh. I could go on, and I did, obsessing for days. But then I watched a story about Evan Lysacek that aired right before he skated his gold-medal-winning routine. All the commentators had been talking about his rigorous preparation for that night, how he had done every possible thing he could have, and that no matter what happened, he knew that he had left no stone unturned in his quest for gold. That story played over and over in my head for the next day or two–I just couldn’t get over how calm Lysacek had looked with so much pressure riding on his shoulders. He was calm because he knew he had done everything he could to succeed.

I decided that that was precisely how I needed to look at this whole grad school thing. I did everything I could this time around–I left no stone unturned in my quest for admittance into the program. Whatever comes in that letter, acceptance or rejection, I know that I did my best, so it’s time for me to stop obsessing and start thinking about doors and windows.

I went to a great Writers Festival this weekend, which showed me many, many open windows and which reminded me that I already know how to climb through them. I just have to learn to recognize them when I see them, which is how I have vowed to view whatever comes next–someone may show me a closed door in the next few days, but I will find the open window–I’m going to get there, one way or the other.

Proof of that came today, when I opened up my e-mail and found a request from an agent I’d queried–she wants a full reading of my manuscript. Yay! Not the first time that’s happened, but it’s been a while, and it’s always nice to be asked.

Will this be the open window? Who knows? But I’m certainly not interested in wondering any more about doors closing on me…I’ve driven myself crazy enough with that.

But I will keep you posted. Thanks for coming along with me.

Well, still no news–at least, none that would bring me (or those of you who are following my blog) any sort of relief. The mailbox continues to be empty, save for unwanted catalogs and sadistic ads for lawn services–Do these people ever look out the window?! I know it’s sunny today and the amount of daylight is increasing, even here in the Arctic tundra, but Phil’s prediction of 6 weeks of winter for the rest of the country would be a ridiculously early spring here. I know, grouse, grouse, grouse, grumble, grumble, grumble.

Nope–nothing in my mailbox, nothing in my inbox, and nothing on my voicemail. I continue to be hopeful that no news is good news regarding my grad school application, but as the song goes, “L’espoir est un plat bien trop vite consomme.” (Roughly translated: “Hope is a dish that is too quickly consumed.”) I need the mental equivalent of MyAlli, I’m beginning to think–something that will fill me up in place of the dish I’m really craving…

I do have one tiny tidbit of news to share, although it’s not the kind of tidbit that I might find remotely helpful in trying to remain sanguine about my chances. Desperate for any kind of a sign, I visited the university’s Web site yesterday morning, and found that (hooray!) there was an update on the Admissions section that our applications are now under review.

That was the good news: the bad news, also contained within the update, was that although there is one more position available this year than there was last year (up to 13 from 12), the number of applicants (as I predicted) has also increased, up to 433.  Ugh.

Those of you who read my posts about my Math travails vis a vis taking the GRE this spring know that I don’t know how to use those numbers to figure out my official odds [Damn it, Jim, I’m a writer, not a bookie!], but even I can see they mean that the competition this year is, indeed, stiffer.

So the countdown continues, with me even more pathetically obsessed about it than I was before I checked their Web site. [Note to self: Stop doing that!]

As I wait, I will continue to work on the homework for my classes (which, by the way, I’m pretty sure I’ve decided I hate–This type of work is not for me at all, though I will continue to plug away at it so that I can be prepared to do something other than write if I have to). I will continue to hack away at my manuscript, offering it to readers and editors and publishers and agents to see if something pops with that while I’m waiting for news.

Stay tuned–it may be a bumpy ride.

Well, I did it today: I finally committed the murder I’ve been plotting and planning for over a week.

Early mornings, late nights, long drives alone–I’ve been spending them all working out the details: who was going to die, just  how I was going to do it, what the fallout would be. And today, I finally did it.

It was relatively bloodless, for a murder, I guess; I thought it’d be a lot messier to clean up than it was.

Who was the victim?

Chapter Seven.

Two weeks ago, I sat straight up in bed at 2:37 a.m., the death knell for Chapter Seven clinging to my lips as I struggled to regain consciousness. “Chapter Seven doesn’t work! It’s gotta go!” It was all I could do not to leap out of bed at that moment and race downstairs to execute it right that minute (that’s one habit that the arrival of our puppy Loki cured me of pretty quickly–she’d wake up the entire house if she heard me typing).

So I lay there in bed, eyes struggling to adjust to the dark, and started plotting the deed. Sure I could cut out the chapter, but how would that affect everything else? What details would I have to cull and rework somewhere else? What if I was overthinking things, and Chapter Seven actually did work and I was being paranoid? What if it turned out later that Chapter Seven was, in reality, the only thing in the entire book that actually did work and I killed it?

Those were the questions I’ve been pondering for the past two weeks. But today, I determined, pondering had to end. I wasn’t getting anything done on this revision by avoiding doing it. So I dutifully notified the next of kin (Chapters Six and Eight), started pulling, cutting, trimming, reworking (after, of course, having saved backup originals in three different places–I’m not that foolhardy). I read Seven the Last Rites, asked if it had any final requests (it did, as it turns out: It requested that it be remembered fondly in the Dedication Page when the rest of the book is published), then raised my weapon of singular destruction (figuratively, not literally–my keyboard’s not wireless) and struck the final blow: Delete.

And now, the deed is done. The offending chapter is gone, and I find, after all, that this was not really a murder–it was a mercy killing.

The flow of this part of the story is so much better now! That chapter was a huge, behemoth of a block, and now that it’s gone, I can see that it really, really needed to go.

And I must confess: It felt good to do all that slashing. I enjoyed it. Sick, I know.

And for those of you following and wondering, no news yet…will keep you posted.

February 5: Still no word from the graduate program, which, if one considers that last year I heard from them much later in the month, is not necessarily an unexpected occurrence. It is, however, mildly panic-inducing. I know I shouldn’t let this get to me, but I am a weak and craven being, prone to intense periods of self-doubt, and so the waiting for me is pretty unpleasant.

I have had plenty to keep me distracted this week: homework for my classes (which are going better now–don’t feel like the Mac dunce of the class anymore); continuing revision of my manuscript; a smattering of small freelance projects; a brief and mild bout with the flu–there’s enough to keep me busy.

But in those quiet moments right before I fall asleep at night, or when I pause to look out the window now at the softly falling snow, I wonder if today will be the day.

Would it really change anything if I were rejected again? Other than knocking my self-esteem down a bit further again, probably not. I’d still write, still work, still hope, but my path, without completion of my degree, would continue to incline steeply, making my journey much more arduous. I feel as though the path would level off a bit with that accomplishment under my belt.

I don’t believe that having that M.F.A. behind my name is an automatic path to publication–it’s not. That requires discipline, hard work, networking, and an incredible amount of luck. The first 3 are entirely under my control, but it’s that 4th element that I wonder sometimes if I am lacking, and which, somewhere in the fevered recesses of my writer’s brain, I wonder if I can compensate for by acquiring those three little letters.

It’s hard for agents and publishers to take a writer seriously when there is no English or Journalism background in one’s history to provide an indication of  one’s writing abilities. They receive, each day, so many queries and so many submissions that I find myself imagining that they must have some sort of a minimum checklist of criteria to winnow the wheat from the chaff:

I imagine something like this:

“Hmm. This author spelled my name correctly. That’s good. The genre is right–I’ll never forget the time I got that “Erotica” manuscript by mistake; hoo boy, that was an interesting read! Looks like it’s formatted according to our secret code, excellent. Ooo, look! She even mentioned several of our published works–that’s bonus points! Wait–uh oh. Oh, dear. No English or Journalism background. Too bad, her synopsis sounded pretty interesting.” [loud thud as bright red “Rejected” stamp is applied to query].

I know, I know–that’s just silly. But when you know there are so many submissions each day, you look, often in vain, for the one thing, that tiny thing, that will get your foot in the door. For me, I look for the things that are in my control to change. Discipline. Careful revision. Thoughtful and effective feedback from respected readers meticulously incorporated…and completing my master’s. Right now, those are the things I can control, so those are the things about which I obsess. (Of course, if I get rejected again, that’s one more thing that is not something I can control–it’s that steep incline thing again…)

So yeah, the waiting is hard, because even though I want to be cool and blase about it, I can’t. It matters too much to me. So I write, and I revise, and I query, and I network, and I wait, to see who will visit my mailbox this month: Will it be the Acceptance Fairy or the Rejection Fairy? (I see her too much as it is.)

These are all of the things that are under my control.

Of course, I wouldn’t kick a little bit of extra luck out of bed right now, either.