in which faith is restored

I had been having a bit of a crisis of the faith in terms of my likelihood of finding success as an author. I kept reminding myself of all the people who get rejected hundreds of times before becoming a bestselling author; I kept saying that I would keep going with book one and, if I didn't sell it, start pitching book two; I kept waiting patiently for my ship to come in. But, deep down, I was beginning to doubt -- I was letting the rejections get to me, and it was sapping the creative juices out of my veins.

However, finaling in the Golden Heart was just a totally awesome feeling, and it's given the the strength to keep going (and the desire to get back to writing Madeleine and Ferguson's story, much to Terry's delight). I was perfectly happy all day, only getting annoyed when something threatened to encroach upon my perfect day (like meetings that became wildly inefficient; in the interest of not letting meetings get me down, I canceled as many as I could and left early). Tomorrow could always be bad, but today was fantastic.

As mentioned, I canceled as many meetings as possible, and was admittedly not particularly engaged in the meetings that I attended. I had a long lunch with Terry on main campus (where we apparently missed seeing Ben Affleck in the cafe we ate in by approximately twenty minutes -- although I might not have noticed him anyway, excited as I was about the Golden Heart), and spent some quality time with Katrina when I gave her a ride back to the evil city. I also had nice conversations with Vidya (aka the Chandlord), Katie, and my parents. And, I drank half a glass of wine and watched some Craig, which was a nice end to a great day.

Thanks to all of you who congratulated me -- it means a lot that so many of you are supportive and don't just think I'm a nutcase for trying to be a romance novelist. And now, it's time for bed -- I have a seven a.m. meeting, and while I predict I'll have trouble focusing on it as well, I shall persevere. Goodnight!