I sincerely hope that I don't go crazy waiting for an answer on whether my book is going to sell or not. Oddly, I feel both more and less confident than I did last time -- more because I genuinely feel that this book is leagues better than my last one, which was not a shabby book, and less because I know how hard it is to sell and lost a bit of my faith over the course of my first book. So needless to say, I'm a bit of a basketcase right now, and will likely remain a bit of a basketcase for as long as it takes to resolve this. It was too early to expect any news today, and yet I still slept poorly and spent the morning lazing about in bed hoping that the phone would ring. If nothing else, I can't sleep poorly all the time, and I know I'll settle into some uneasy equilibrium while I wait. And, the good news is that by about three p.m. every day I know that business has shut down on the east coast, so I can at least spend my evenings not waiting for a call that may not come.
So, I laid around in bed until almost noon, finally pulled myself out of it, ate some cheerios, showered, etc., and decided that I should get out of my house. I had a late lunch at Sprout Cafe, which I had turned my nose up to when Tammy's boyfriend suggested it for dinner a couple of months ago -- but for lunch, it was a v. welcome change from the salads that I get at the gym. The salad was absolutely huge, and the ingredients were way better than any other salad place I've been; if parking in that particular stretch of University weren't such a bitch, I would go there more often. I stared at zee romance novel for awhile, came home, made some tea, and took myself over to Stanford library, where I spent a couple of hours and managed to write approximately six pages. Yay -- and yet it's a bit concerning that before I've even gotten into the story, just thinking of Nick and Ellie brings tears to my eyes. Between the stress of the submission process and the deep well of emotion I feel for these characters, I may go completely insane within the month. Lovely, right?
After I got home, I decided to give my emotions a break. I engaged in a bit of schadenfreude and watched the "60 Minutes" episode that I taped last night about the writer of "Three Cups of Tea" who has been exposed (by Jon Krakauer, of all people) for faking key episodes in his memoirs and (worse) potentially misusing funds given to his charity that were supposed to go to building schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan. I just checked some stuff online about it, and one of the excuses that Mortenson floated about why he didn't speak to Steve Kroft when Kroft ambushed him at a booksigning was that he mistook Steve Kroft for a suicide bomber. Ha! Granted, Kroft was wearing a trenchcoat and looking like he wanted to dress up as an investigatory journalist, but how many suicide bombers show up, introduce themselves as Steve Kroft, and bring cameramen and microphone carriers and all sorts of other people with them? Wouldn't it just be easier to show up alone and hit the detonator without pretending to be Steve Kroft?
While watching tv, I painted my nails, and since I wanted to continue watching television rather than messing them up by typing, I watched the second half of "Fellowship of the Ring". Yes, I am a dork. I know I'm a dork because I still get a visceral, breath-stealing reaction to key scenes, like the Bridge of Khazad-Dum sequence or Boromir's death. Sigh. I wanted to put in "The Two Towers" and keep going, but I think I shall go to bed instead. Maybe I'll watch it in the morning while waiting for the phone to ring -- although at least tomorrow I need to go to the gym and see Alyssa, so I'll get a bit of the break from the tyranny of waiting. Goodnight!
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