Well, here we go again: another week of so many tantalizingly possible ups, I’m almost certain to come crashing down for one (or more) enormous downs. Hey, everyone–please allow me to introduce our guest blogger for the day, Eeyore! 

Okay, here’s the scoop: First, I heard back from a highly-respected local mentoring press’ Acquisitions Editor that they would be delighted to publish my book. That is exciting news, of course, since this particular press does only publish 1 out of every 9 submissions it receives, they are an award-winning press, and the books I’ve seen are all very high quality. It was definitely balm for my writer’s ego to spend some time reading the editor’s critique and fantasize about moving forward with the process, but I’m just not there yet.

A mentoring press is still, after all, a type of self-publishing, even if this one is more selective than most about its authors, not to mention that it would still cost a pretty chunk of change to get the job done. I’m not dismissing it–just pondering it at the moment.

Then, out of the blue, I received a moving thank-you last week from someone who had read a health-related article of mine from a couple of years ago which prompted them to see a doctor and led to an accurate diagnosis of the individual’s very rare condition. I mean, wow–how much more of a difference in the world can you hope to make in the world as a writer than to, well, sort of, save someone’s life? After that, publication seems sort of secondary.

But only sort of. Because then I participated in a webinar with a literary agent earlier this week, part of which included submitting my first three pages for a critique. After the spate of recent rejections, a critique was all I expected, but on the strength of those three pages, the agent requested a partial review of 30 pages! Again, she could get to page 29 and decide, “Bleh, that’s enough for me,”, but just having had someone ask always feels good.

And then, on that “real job” front: just when I least expected it, I got an e-mail requesting an interview with me for a job I applied to a couple of weeks ago–I was hoping it might be a good enough fit to actually speak with a live human being about it, but given that I’ve sent out dozens of applications over the last year without a single interview being granted, this was a pretty exciting development.

So to recap: thank you from grateful reader; acceptance for publication by mentoring press; request for a partial from a bona fide literary agent; and job interview later this week (and it’s even for something I don’t think I would actually hate doing every day!)

Oh, and of course, my beloved Chicago Bears won this past weekend–it doesn’t get much better than this, does it?

Um, no–and that’s precisely what has me worried now. Stay tuned, everyone.