Exoskeleton Fail

5

I am back from vacation. I made the mistake of thinking 85 strength sunblock applied twice over (a few hours apart) would do the trick. Managed to burn myself so badly on the first day (snorkeling twice, swimming in pool, then a 2+ hour walk in the afternoon) that I spent the rest of the trip wishing I could levitate so my burn body wouldn’t touch anything. Yeah. Not fun.

I spent most of last week on painkillers swathed in aloe and hiding from the sun (though I probably made the burn worse by venturing out multiple times… it was too lovely there to be able to hide indoors. Which should mean lots of writing done, right? Not so much. See, the worst burn is my shoulders, arms, and… hands! Also, I scraped up a few knuckles on some rocks (but I got to touch a sea turtle, so it worked out).

I got a couple chapters done and an entire other novel outlined. That second bit was an accident, but I was so inspired by the landscape and the ideas hitting me that I had to at least get the gist down in outline form.

I can still finish the current novel by the end of the month. If I put my head down and go. (Burn is healing, the blisters have split, the skin is starting to fall off like crazy… TMI yet? *grin*). So that’s the plan. Write like the wind and get this novel done so I can start the next one.

Oh, and I averaged one rejection a day while I was gone. Gave me lots of admin work to do today. Got all but one story back out, it is in an envelope waiting on the mail tomorrow, so it is basically done and out. Nothing like a stack of “thanks but no thanks” waiting for you to return. Fun day I had today, heh. I’m really missing short story writing though. Haven’t gotten a new one out in a few weeks and it feels weird. I did get notice that yet another story is under “final consideration” somewhere, so that’s 4 now I get to live in suspense with. Strangely, I feel fairly calm about it. I guess I’m so focused on getting the writing done that once something is out the door, I don’t worry about it too much. It’ll either sell or it won’t. Meanwhile I’m learning some neat new tricks from some of the books I’ve been reading and (hopefully) implementing that stuff in my own writing.

So that’s the story of my vacation. Time to get back to work…

5 Responses to “Exoskeleton Fail”

  1. Alex J. Kane

    Sorry to hear you got roasted…I can certainly relate. It’s a hellish sort of misery, but it does give you an excuse to be grouchy and remain perfectly still for a few days, which is something every person deserves on occasion.

    I definitely feel the rejection sting myself. I’m up to 30 already, and while I’m not getting discouraged — quite the contrary — I am starting to settle into the reality that, damnit, this could take a while (getting published hehe).

    When you say you’re not really all that anxious about being under final consideration, I totally feel that too. At this point, still a ways off from the 1-year-of-writing mark, I already am feeling like the only thing that matters is me, my stories, and getting them submitted. I’ve managed to stop checking my email 148 times a day, so that’s an improvement.

    -AJK

    • izanobu

      Thanks, Alex 😛 Roasted sucks. The check-out lady at my local store looked at me last night and said “Oh, you got it bad” and I looked at her deadpan for a moment and said “Leprosy, yeah.”
      She actually looked torn about whether or not to believe me until my husband ruined it by telling her I was kidding 🙂

      I’d advise that you stop counting rejections. It’s tough to do (I counted after about 80 until I got to 100), but it doesn’t really help anything. I know I got 8 (now 10 thanks to this morning) rejections this last week, but I don’t really keep track anymore of the over all total. If it is any consolation, I’ve heard it takes around 100 to a first sale for short fiction. Of course, if you haven’t written 1,000,000 words yet, it could take longer (or shorter, depends on your learning curve- took me 49, but I’ve definitely written more than a million words of fiction in the last 21 years). Basically, counting doesn’t seem to help. You’ll sell when you sell and won’t when you won’t 🙂

  2. Moses Siregar III

    I managed to burn my shoulders pretty well while I was on a vacation this summer too. The real reward for me is the skin peeling that happens after the fact. Strangely addictive 🙂

  3. Brad R. Torgersen

    I never asked, but are you of English or Irish descent? Us Northern Euro types don’t get along with the sun too well. My daughter is fortunate she has Mama’s genes. She gets golden, not burned, and the golden lasts well into winter. Ought to serve her well when she’s older, I think.

    • izanobu

      Irish, all the way 😛 Probably (I’m adopted, so who really knows). But yeah, I bake to a nice freckled burning red in the sunlight. Sigh.

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