Now I know I'm broken

[desperance]

My agent phoned an hour ago, to say how much he liked the new book. This is a good thing, and ought to make me happy.

And yet, since then I have spilled cooked rice all over the kitchen floor, shouted at Barry, bitten my tongue (not a metaphor: metaphors don't bleed) and generally find myself absolutely at the ragged edge of functionality.

I am going to give up on the day altogether and retreat to the sofa with a bottle or two of wine, and no ambition beyond making a better fist of tomorrow.

Comments

[szandara.livejournal.com]

Sometimes a day just decides to go bad...you open the carton, take a whiff, and decide you just have to pour the entire thing down the sink. Nothing else to do.

*hugs*

[desperance.livejournal.com]

S'true. But the kitchen floor got swept, and while the second pan of rice was boiling, I hoovered the dining-room. Kinda casually, but. Hoovered. And there isn't even anybody coming round. My inner Domestic Goddess is flabbergasted. Fanning herself with her apron.

[szandara.livejournal.com]

My Inner Domestic Goddess salutes yours, for a job well done. I should do some of that...at least I ran some laundry through the washer and dryer today. Want to lay odds on how many days before it's all folded and put away?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Hah! My wardrobe has given up hoping. The clean clothes accumulate, within its eyeline; and then just sit there in heaps, until they're taken away to be worn and made dirty again. Poor thing is very beautiful, but entirely redundant, except for holding those clothes that I have bought but am clearly never going actually to wear.

[szandara.livejournal.com]

My storage space is insufficient to the amount of clothing I own unless some significant portion of it is in the washer/dryer/laundry basket. If it's all clean and put away at once, something might burst.

That has, fortunately, never happened.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

Man. *hugs* Here's to tomorrow being a better day.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Oh, hell, I don't deserve all this hugging. A difficult day with the words, a few trifling clumsinesses and a great deal of overreaction. A little less drama queen, a little more work will see us through. I'm just tired (in that sense of 'tired' that parents use to describe hysterical toddlers accessing their inner Alien).

Also, my agent likes my book. What am I fussing about?

[I've drunk that bottle or two I mentioned above, and am feeling a little more mellow: can you tell?]

I'm going to have an outrageously hot bath, then go to bed with Elizabeth Bear. As it were. All may yet be well.

*hugs back*

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know, but some days when all the little stuff goes wrong and you know you're overreacting, hugs are good to have anyway. :)

Plus, your agent likes your book. :)

*LAUGHS* Have a nice time in bed with eBear. :)

frivolity for you and barry

[desayunoencama.livejournal.com]

http://poetryfoundation.org/dispatches/gallery/cartoon14.html

Re: frivolity for you and barry

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Hee! Thank you. I think he's got over being shouted at; he sat on my knee all through CSI. He's a cold-weather lap-cat.

[devonellington.livejournal.com]

Some days are just like that, in spite of our best intentions. Feel better soon.

[davidbarnett.livejournal.com]

My agent phoned an hour ago, to say how much he liked the new book

Lucky you. *sulks*

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Oh, whoops. What - you're still waiting to hear? Or he didn't like it? If the former, give him a poke, if you're sure it didn't get lost in all his moving-about calamities. He's only just getting his life sorted out again.

(Also, he'd read half of Desi already, which probably helps...)

[davidbarnett.livejournal.com]

Nah, not heard yet. But I have been away for a week and a bit, and there are his internet probs, which doesn't help. I'm in a bit of a writing funk at the moment, probably post-novel come-down.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Almost certainly. I'd have it too, except that I have an absolute need to keep going, four urgent projects that cannot be postponed or evaded; so I write through gritted teeth, and every word is an effort and I dislike it before my fingers have moved on to the next. I hate my babies, and would quite cheerfully kill them all.

And, y'know, there are people who aspire to this life. Gah...

[davidbarnett.livejournal.com]

Spoke to John; he loves it. Memo to self: stop being a miserable sod.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Excellent news; excellent advice.

So what's next, what are you working on now? Oh, wait, I know: book of short stuff, yes? But what's the next novel...?

[davidbarnett.livejournal.com]

We-ee-ell... Another book in the Don't Let Them Take You Alive milieu, concentrating more on Dorothy Culpepper's backstory, seems to be fighting for control of my cerebral cortex right about now, featuring terrorists, an angry djinn, hippies, the Summer of Love and Carnaby Street. But I;m not sure of the wisdom of starting that until I get at least some feedback from Grub Street about DLTTYA...

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Okay, that makes sense. And good to have the short stuff to work on in the meantime. So long as you don't wait too long, of course. Of course we hope that the big boys will be fighting to bid for DL..., but in case not, no hanging on till the last possible small press has gently declined, before you start something new...

[davidbarnett.livejournal.com]

I've also been kicking around a semi-autobiographical work with the working title "10 Glastonburys" about the relationship between two friends as played out over a decade's worth of Glastonbury festivals, with some weird stuff in there about Dionysus partying every year and one of them eventually joining his endless Bacchanal (to mix myths)... but reading that back to myself just now it sounds like unselleable guff!