Plagued

I am coming down with the January plague. Steve was sick all of last week, and I thought I’d managed to avoid it, but a walk home in the rain and several nights of only sleeping for five hours seem to have caught up with me. I’m sucking on zinc and vitamin C drops and drinking lots of tea. (I don’t know if tea has actual medicinal properties, but I am a huge fan of Starbucks’ new black tea latte and find it very comforting).

Draft 3 is out with my readers now. I am eagerly awaiting their brilliant feedback. It’s so different from the last draft—60 pages and 20,000 words shorter, first person, present tense, lost a few minor characters, gained a few scenes…I think it’s much stronger but I am of course still nervous. Do you ever get to a point where you send work out and you’re not worried that it sucks?

I had tea last night withdpeterfreund. She was fun and chatty and it was fascinating to hear her point of view on the publishing industry. But the second she asked me what my book was about, I froze. I babbled my way through something lame but when I came home it was the first thing I told Steve. Like, “Hey, she was awesome, and I am a stammering idiot.” I swear to God, if you told my family or my best friends that I am shy, they would never believe you; I can be such a chatterbox with people I know well. But with strangers? Even a supernice, friendly writer whose books I really like and who knows lots of other writers whose books I really like? (maybe especially then, actually) I am totally, idiotically shy.

Anyway, Steve gave me an assignment to describe my book in two sentences. This is what I came up with: A girl discovers her link to another world where artists are considered traitorous enemies of the state. And there are boys. I also wrote a working synopsis. Synopses are hard, yo. But not as hard as titles. Steve and I have been tossing them back and forth to no avail. (As we fell asleep at 2 a.m: Me: “Blood Rebels?” S: “Bloodbound?” Me: “Blood Heritage?” All too dark and thriller-y, I think.)

So that’s me. Drinking tea. Learning to use my words.