Wednesday, September 15, 2010

A Few Quick Takes

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I’m reviewing a book for Foreword Reviews called High Octane Women: How Superachievers Can Avoid Burnout. I wonder if this is quite a serendipitous pairing, me and this book. Even though I am not a doctor or lawyer or corporate executive, I think I might be “high octane,” whatever that exactly means (I’m only on page 25). And it makes me think that there are probably a lot of mums out there who aren’t necessarily swimming in the corporate world and yet are managing an AWFUL lot in and outside their homes.

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Rejection letter: I got a second rejection on my nonfiction manuscript today. It only took five days short of 4 months to hear back from this press (PLU grads of 2010, please note this is better than the 6 months we talked about at residency). So anyway, I figure I should get another ten more of these at least before anything remotely promising happens. Somebody pinch me. I think I’m starting to feel like a real writer.

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In the dead space of my life these days, the ones where no one’s talking and the baby remains focused on nursing, rather than bobbing her head in the direction of anything emiting sound over the decibel level belonging to the buzz of a mosquito, I’ve been thinking about all this stuff I have, and how I don’t really want my life to be weighed down by this many things. At the same time, I don’t want to part with my things because, well, I don’t know why. I think about the second chapter of the book of Acts a lot, about how the believers were “together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.” I would like to have so little attachment to my things that selling them for someone else’s good would be easy. But I don’t, and it’s not. So I decided to do something about it. I had a few things people needed, things that would make their lives easier, and I gave those things away or lent them out, sent them off into the world. And I'm trusting that my resources will be replenished when I need them, at just the right time, in just the right way.

3 comments:

ABG said...

Does the second bug you less than the first? I got my first from a journal today. Ugh. Probably more than ten of those ahead of me...

Table for 6 said...

You're missing your snappie aren't you? :)

Heather Weber said...

Actually, the second bugged me more and only because the first rejection letter was so positive and personal. It was the "best" kind of rejection letter, I guess. This time round, I got a form letter.
Oh, I guess I did get another rejection letter on a query recently to this tiny, super hippie press. One of the guys responded within a day and said, "Nice idea, but we are winding down, not up. Imagine Peace..." I had no idea what that meant or how to feel about it. LOL!