Time alone

My son attended is first dress rehearsal so to speak of pre-school today. They have a little Summer camp thing for half a day Tuesdays and Thursdays the next two weeks. I cried and cried in front of strangers, and after they had peeled my son away from me one of the strangers literally chased me down to give me a big hug and assure me that they would "Hug him and rock him and love him like he is our own. I promise we won't just let him cry." That was nice of her, especially because I was sort of snippy with her the first time she tried to take him.

He must have stopped melting down almost immediately, because just as I was pulling out of the parking lot I saw him pushing a pink shopping cart in the playground with the biggest THIS. IS. AWESOME! face I've ever seen.

I think it was good for him though. He's been spontaneously talking a lot since we came home which he almost never does, sometimes he's saying things I didn't even know he could say. It's kinda crazy. They said he didn't cry anymore after they got outside and he played with other kids and ate his snack and did what they told him. I'm so freakin' proud and also kind of sad that he's growing up so fast.

This is petty

But I can't shake it. I'm so sick of being the fattest person in my family. Like, by a wide margin. Cousins and all. And even when I was being neurotic about everything I ate and over-exercising, I was still the fattest person in my family. I manage to forget this but every time I see the photos of a family gathering, it makes me feel like shit.

Plus, they're all completely diet-talk obsessed. I mean they don't actually have to diet or exercise to be thin, they're just sort of obsessed with talking about how they're totally getting fat and shouldn't be eating whatever it is they're eating. It sucks, and it adds to my desire to avoid them.

I really don't know why I couldn't have had a fat family. And I really wish it didn't matter this much to me.

My Son

I feel like I'm getting a glimpse into the teen years with this two-year-old thing.

1) He has started hitting. Often. Hard. And for no reason at all. We put him in time out. He has never gotten what he wants by hitting. And yet it continues. In fact, it's gotten worse. Tonight he smacked me in the face when I was getting his pajamas on, and so instead of rocking him I just put him in his crib and left. As I was closing the door he said, "Bye" but in the sassiest imaginable tone. It's all very weird.

2) I just yesterday enrolled him in preschool that starts after Labor Day. It's two days a week for half a day each time and I'm freaking out about the prospect of leaving him on his own. But I felt like I needed to do it because at our baby gym class he wouldn't socialize with anyone besides me. Then, today at baby gym he hangs out with a little girl; swinging on the bars, rolling the round cushion climbing through the obstacle courses, even having a little jabber jabber conversation and laughing together. When they left the little girl said, "Bye! I love you!" and he pet her head like a puppy. Where was this kid before I signed up to leave him with a stranger?

I swear, I'm going to be a regular drinker by the time he's three.

I'm a big deal

Again, not really. I'm enjoying these fake out titles. I just got a very nice letter from the guy editing the anthology my first short story is going to be in. He said a lot of encouraging things that made me so happy I'm going to ignore the fact that the formatting guidelines he links to on the submissions page of his website contradict the formatting changes he's asked me to make. But these last couple things make me giggle whenever I think about them. He's referring to an essay about writing the short story which is also going to be in the anthology.

(1000 words or less, more if you need to)

Deadline June 31, or whenever...

I'm sure he's just reached the point where he trusts me to be professional and timely, but whenever I think about it I get Ke$ha in my head singing, "Because the party don't start 'till I walk in."

Also, I'm researching preschools and we're probably about to start potty training. I find that both overwhelming and surreal.

Fear of Success

I'm not really afraid of success. I don't think. But I do have to stop submitting to agents on the faith that they won't request materials, because now I'm afraid I've blown my chance with the only two who will ever request materials.

The good news: I am two for two in queries resulting in requested materials.

The bad news: I had to pull a synopsis out of my butt because one of the reasons I queried this agency was because they didn't require one. Lo and behold when they requested my first three chapters, they also requested a synopsis.

The other bad news: Because of the synopsis frenzy, I forgot that in Chapter Two I had place marked something with an asterisk that I had recently added because the last line is a bit of plagiarism from Glee that I put in with the intention of changing it later so as not to interrupt my flow. So it is 1)plagiarism that is 2) wildly inappropriate and 3) marked with an asterisk to ensure she won't skim past it without noticing it.

And she told me in her e-mail she had an eight to twelve week turn around time so I have around that long to dwell on my idiocy.

Sad Face

The agent who requested my full manuscript e-mailed me a few minutes ago letting me know she was passing. I knew it would happen, because I have sent off all of one query letter and it simply isn't that easy, but it's still pretty disappointing.

I think overall it's for the best. I mean, I have a lot of respect for this agent and I'd be really pleased for her to represent me but the two short stories I'm working on for anthologies right now are both fantasy stories and I'm having a lot of fun writing them. It's so much fun that I'm considering going that direction for my next novel, and she is very clear that she does not represent fantasy so it possibly wouldn't have worked out in the long term anyway.

And even though all that's true, I've still got a hole in my stomach over it. Especially because her stated reason was that she couldn't connect emotionally to the main character. She was very nice about it, but it's one of those things that isn't an easy fix, and could possibly not need fixing if it's a situation where not everyone connects to everything but there's no real way to know which it is.

Ugh.

Lets hug and jump up and down

A short story I submitted a while back is totally going to be published!

The editor had some minor notes plus he feels the ending needs to be "more satisfying" but overall he said I have the skills to be an excellent short story writer and he's really interested in working with me now and in the future.

I like the ending, but I wrote this story specifically for this call for submission so it's not like I can take my ball and go home. And it will be great for me to have something to put in the writing credits section of my novel query letters. Plus, I have a theory that artistic integrity might be for suckerz.

Yay!