Happy Halloween!

Not sure how much I'd have to pay John to wear this yellow get-up/gold medallion. But since Lydia is going to be a Tootsie Roll, I guess the below picture would be more accurate.

Both are kind of a bad idea.

The green eyed monster

My son Jack is going to be a blue monster this year for Halloween. Totally a typical 3-year-old he decided last week that he absolutely had to be a blue monster, and it would take a Halloween miracle to get him into the tiger costume that we were planning on using this year. After hours of googling, phone calls and re-googling, I finally found the poor kid a blue monster costume and he's one happy camper.

Anyways, it got me thinking about what I would be for Halloween this year if I was dressing up (which I am definitely NOT), and sadly I think I'd have to be a green eyed monster. It has been years since I've been really, truly jealous of anyone. Back in college I got jealous when this horrible girl tried to steal my boyfriend, and let's just say that ended with a horrible fake trip and approximately one pint of keg beer being poured all over said girl's head. So, safe to say that I don't handle the whole jealous rage thing all that well.

Lately I find myself lurking on message boards reading stories about writers who have found agents or recently signed huge publishing deals and I am completely consumed by jealousy. I know, I know it's so completely childish, but I just can't seem to stop myself. I read their queries and excerpts from their books and compare them to what we've written, it's like I've turned into the Blair Waldorf of writers. I'm a hot, catty, mess.

I'm working on conquering the monster, really, I am. I just can't make any promises. So...umm...any published or agented authors out there, if you happen to see a shortish girl with a slightly crazed look in her eyes and a little blue monster clamped onto one of her legs hobbling towards you with a full glass of beer, one word of advice: RUN.

Downer day...

Nothing bad actually happened today, just not really a great day. Our inbox remained stubbornly empty, the kids were insane and I'm so tired. I'm sure a lot of this can be attributed to our long weekend in Vegas and I know it's not helping that I haven't been to the gym yet this week, but I just can't work up the energy to do anything about it. For the love of god I just want to get an agent and get our book published. This is just emotionally exhausting.

Anyways, I'm shutting down the computer, putting the kids to bed early and pouring myself a huge glass of wine. Cheers!

Your weekly dose of Bass...

It's that time of the week again dear readers. You know I always save Tuesday nights for catching up on Gossip Girl and as usual our upper East Side Lothario does not disappoint.

This week I couldn't choose just one quote. I love both of these because I fully plan on using them in day-to-day conversation as soon as humanly possible.

When Blair asks Chuck his opinion on her perfume, he takes a sensual whiff and declares,

"Smells a little like desperation."

And then when the king of frown lines, Dan Humphrey, is trying to get Chuck's attention he replies,

"I heard you, I was just choosing to ignore you."

Thank you Chuck Bass.

P.S.

You rock fitted purple sweaters and black velvet pants like nobody's business. Seriously, I think my mom might have worn something similar one Christmas in the mid-90's. Wouldn't it be awesome if they had one of those US Weekly who wore it better polls and it was Chuck Bass versus my mom. My new mission in life is to make this happen.

I am the worst mom in the world...

For a couple reasons. First of all, Lydia had prunes for the first time yesterday. The doctor suggested feeding them to her every so often to cleanse her little system. They looked like tar, but she loved every last bit of the container. So when Lydia awoke (as usual) at 3 a.m., I went in (as usual) and popped her pacifier back in. When at 4 a.m., she was still playing around in her crib, I went in again and flipped her onto her back, thinking it was a little strange that she hadn't fallen back asleep. No, the prunes did not ring any bells. 5 a.m. rolled around, and still Lydia was playing in her crib, again on her belly. Maybe she's not tired? Oh no, no, no. At 6:30 a.m., a reasonable wake up time, I went in to change her. Poor Lydia had the dirtiest diaper of her life. I won't go into very much more detail (as I'm sure you all have imaginations of your own), but if I were Lydia, I would have been playing on my stomach as well. In fact, I'm not sure I would have been playing at all, but rather SCREAMING to have someone, anyone change me. Damn prunes.

Identity theft, isn't it romantic?

Ok, this is just so creepy I had to share. My husband had his credit card number stolen last week and some random dude bought a subscription to Playboy, some DirectTv porn and other things that (thankfully) don't fit my husband's typical spending patterns. So, the little fraud alert bell went off at the credit card company and they called my husband to see if he made these purchases.

Just to give you some background, I'm totally paranoid about identity theft because I've read all the horror stories about not being able to buy houses or cars because some jackass has buried you in $25,000 of credit card debt. Anyways, I've been busy obsessing about whether our house is going to go into foreclosure because someone took out a sub-prime mortgage on a condo in Fort Lauderdale, and then today we received flowers.

Correction, my husband received flowers. The note was somewhat mysterious, saying only "IUY." I've googled it, tried to decode it, would love to hear any theories on what this might mean. At first I thought my husband's girlfriend was sending him coded messages, but then he reminded me (somewhat defensively, I might add) that his credit card had recently been stolen. Cue complete paranoia. I was on the phone with the FTD.com faster than you can say "bankruptcy" only to find that they have some useless confidentiality clause (I mean who are they protecting here? Secret admirers?) and they could not disclose the sender. Finally, I ended up checking the stolen credit card and there it was a $41.99 charge on FTD.com for our cheap-ass flowers.

So, to be clear, our identity thief sent us flowers. Did he do this to thank us for the porn? To soften the blow of having someone steal our credit card? To taunt us? Isn't this totally bizarre? I think Stacey has the best theory I've heard so far, perhaps the thief meant to write IOU on the card instead of IUY. Not bad, Stace...

The funniest part of this entire situation is that in Ken's world, buying flowers is so unusual that it actually sets off fraud alerts. Classic.

The Top 10 Reason Vegas Rocks

(From left to right - Laura, Lisa and Stacey. Joni refused to pose in the picture!)

10. Joel McHale - We saw Joel live on Friday night, you know the guy from the Soup? From discussing real-life encounters with the Kardashian family to debating whether his 3-year-old son was an evil genius or dumb as a box of rocks, he was hilarious. If you ever have the chance to see him live, I highly recommend it. Good times.

9. Awesome lady from Boston who gave me $15 - This lady was fab for two reasons. First off she thought my mom was my sister. So really, this is fabulous for my mom, not so fabulous for me. But still my mom loved it and at least I have good aging genes. Right? Also when she heard it was my birthday, or in retrospect, maybe she just felt really bad for the whole sisters thing, she gave me $15 to play at the table! How nice is that? Of course, I lost the money instantly, but still. Super cute.

8. Random dudes from Texas who think the election is being funded by Dubai - Really, you can't make this stuff up. Two guys from Texas (one of whom was allegedly hitting on my mom according to the nice rich lady from Boston) started talking politics at the 3-card poker table and it got ugly. Everyone is entitled to their opinions but when people start spouting lies about Obama being Muslim and referencing that his campaign is being funded by Dubai, it pisses me off. Ignorant and ugly, but also sort of awesome because you meet all sorts of people in Vegas and they're NEVER shy.

7. The pool at the Mirage - From random dudes with mustaches hitting on bikini-wearing, daiquiri swilling, women who look 5-months pregnant to party promoters inviting us to nightclubs, it has got to be the best people watching in America. You just never know who is going to turn up at the pool in Vegas, but chances are good that they shouldn't be seen in public wearing a bathing suit.

6. Free dinner - So, normal people go to Vegas and get their dinners comped because they win so much money gambling, but not us. That's way too easy. Instead, Laura and I got food poisoning from one of the restaurants at Mandalay Bay. Yes, that's right, I spent 24 hours of my Vegas trip puking in our hotel room. Note to self, never a good idea to order a tuna melt with macaroni salad in Vegas. (What were we thinking, Laura?)

5. Drumline - Shockingly I've never seen this little gem before, but it was playing on MTV at the peak of my food poisoning. Two thumbs up. I mean, if you're going to be throwing up in Vegas due to food-borne illness as opposed to a crazy night of partying, this is definitely the movie to watch. Nick Cannon. Drums. Dancing. Inspiring moments. Good times.

4. Quick Hits Slot Machines - I've never really liked playing slot machines until my mom introduced me to this little gem. It's the gambling equivalent to crack. We were all so sure that this one machine in the Bellagio was going to hit that we ended up pouring close to $300 into the stupid machine. It was so dumb, yet so exhilarating. Even Laura who usually hates gambling was totally obsessed with these machines. It was a little scary.

3. Video Poker - So, you've lost most of your money at 3-card poker and the Quick Hits machines, now what? Video poker baby! It requires a small amount of strategic thinking, yet it's completely mind numbing. After you've played about 100 games your eyes start to blur and you totally forget that you're pissing away your money. It's fabulous.

2. Hotmail via Blackberry - Did you really think we'd not be checking our e-mail for 4 whole days? Puh-lease. By Friday morning I had figured out how to use my blackberry to check our e-mail and we checked obsessively throughout the weekend. We did have some good news come in, but still no offer of representation just yet, and so we wait...

1. My mom and sisters - We always have the most amazing time together whether we're in Vegas or sitting at my mom's kitchen table and this weekend was no exception. In spite of feeling like I was going puke for about 50% of the trip and losing every penny I brought with me, I still managed to laugh so hard that I cried and had the best birthday ever. Thank you so much for celebrating with me. I love you guys!

Vegas Baby!

Well loyal readers, I regret to inform you that our little blog will be taking a brief hiatus while Laura and I hit the strip to celebrate my 30th b-day.

Now, I know what you're all thinking..."what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas," right? Sadly, I'm not sure this rule applies when you're travelling with your sister who's 4 months pregnant (Stacey, not Laura!) and your 55-year-old mom. Although, as my mom says "as long as the slots are loose..." I swear, she's like Vince Vaughan from Swingers trapped in the life of a Cleveland CPA.

Anyways, I'm a little concerned that the universe is going to implode if we're not sitting at our computers refreshing our hotmail all day long, but in reality, this little break might be good for our mental health. We'll be back with lots of embarrassing pictures and riveting updates of the status of our (empty) e-mail account on Monday.

Yeah, we're so money and we don't even know it,
Lisa and Laura

Damn you, Lisa...

Just kidding. At this point, what do we have to lose? At least it was a memorable phone call. If nothing else, they will always remember the crazy amateurs who bothered them late night. But, that doesn't mean you're off the hook in terms of an embarrassing photo upload (you, Quincy and a waterfall come to mind). We'll get to that next week...if I can convince Stacey to send one my way. With that said, I am signing off, that is unless something huge happens between now and my flight tomorrow. Have a great weekend everyone!

Ooops...

Ok, so let's just say, hypothetically that someone, let's call her Lisel, was sitting around one night and after she finished watching the Hills she decided to take in a little 90210 only to find that it was a repeat. Inevitably, she started to get a little bored. She refreshed her hotmail for the 80,000th time. Checked her cell phone to make sure she hadn't missed "the call" from an agent. And finally, she decided to look over the query spreadsheet to gaze longingly at the list of agents waiting to be queried.

Now, just to provide a little background here, Lisel had a very specific conversation with her sister, let's call her Laurel, earlier that evening about not sending out any new queries before their big Vegas trip this weekend. I mean, really, what's the point of querying if you're not going to be around to refresh your e-mail every 2 minutes.

Ahh, but there was one name on that list that called to Lisel like a siren's song. Their website looked so promising. The agents/editors sounded so fun. Lisel just knew that they would love the book, yet one essential piece was missing. No submissions policy. Hmm...this was unheard of. Usually, submissions policies are prominently featured on agency websites, but this place is new and has a different (and very cool) business model for marketing and publishing books, so Lisel did the unthinkable. She picked up the phone.

Now, those of you who have never attempted to find an agent before might not realize this, but calling agents is strictly verboten. Agents are busy. Agents don't have time to hear from lowly aspiring authors. Agents are gods that control the fate of your sorry ass book, and you really, really don't want to piss them off. Anyways, Lisel, under the mistaken assumption that no one would ever answer the phone at 11:11 PM, called their offices hoping for a message that would provide clues regarding their submissions policy.

So, Lisel's itchy little fingers dialed the number to the office and the phone rang once, twice and then "Hello?" Oh shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Lisel realized that this was not good. Not only was she caught violating the golden rule of agent querying, but she was also violating said rule at 11:11 PM on a Tuesday night. She quickly ran through her options. She could hang up. She could lie and say she had the wrong number. Or she could just ask about the stupid submissions policy. So little Lisel did what came naturally and apolgetically asked about the submissions policy, and while the agent/editor didn't exactly hang up on her, she did sound slightly frazzled by the totally random call. Fabulous first impression, Lisel. Just fab.

Now some people might decide to call it a night after such an eventful evening, but Lisel isn't some people. Now that she's broken the rules she figures she might as well really piss Laurel off and send the damn query. I mean, it certainly couldn't hurt, right? Who knows, this agency might actually enjoy crazy, stalker-like phone calls from prospective clients at 11:11 PM on a Tuesday night, right? RIGHT?

Well, anyways, I'm sure we'll all be hearing about Laura, I mean, Laurel's reaction to this debacle tomorrow. Let's just hope she hasn't saved the pictures from Sophomore year homecoming. Ouch.

Deep thoughts from Chuck Bass...

Well dear readers, it's Tuesday and you know what that means. Time to hear from the beloved stylish man-whore who is Chuck Bass.

This week Chuck asks dear annoying, slightly wonky looking Vanessa:

"Did you have a reason for coming here? Because if it was to insult me there's a web site you can go to."

Love it. TGFCB (Thank God for Chuck Bass).

My Best Ideas to Date...

In 6th grade, all the kids in Team A participated in the Invention Convention. Kids invented all sorts of things. John actually invented fertilizer ice cubes. He froze fertilizer in ice cube trays so you could just drop a cube into a plant and it could be both watered and fertilized at the same time. Not bad. My BFF Emily invented something having to do with a baby and a highchair--not sure about that one. I came up with the Hat Phone—catchy name. It consisted of nailing (my dad was responsible for this) an old cordless phone to a batting helmet I pilfered from my dad’s softball bag—he coached Stacey’s softball team. It was the first hands-free phone—a primitive Bluetooth. Okay, a very primitive Bluetooth. Needless to say, I was shocked I didn’t win.

In journalism class my junior year of high school, we had to invent a product and create a commercial for it, which our teacher video taped. I invented a lotion that when applied to your face, eliminated all imperfections—pimples, unwanted facial hair, you name it. Way to draw attention to all of my insecurities—go team! I hope to God that teacher destroyed the video tape. How embarrassing.

Y2K Clock—I can’t take all of the credit for this one. This was a Roecker Family idea. In 1999, we brainstormed ways to create a clock that would hit 12:00 on the New Year and self-destruct. We thought it would be hilarious. We also thought we could make a lot of money. Neither happened.

I still think this next one is a good idea. A device that you plug in while blow drying your hair that sucks up all the hairs that fall out. Go ahead, inventor, grab that one up. I would buy it.

I have some more up my sleeve (and yes, some ideas are as recent as last year). But, I have to say, Lisa’s idea for our book is definitely the best idea to date. Now we just have to find an agent who feels the same way.

Happy Belated Birthday!

Finally, finally my birthday post for Lisa has come to fruition--thanks to my computer savvy sister Stacey who changed the .pdf to a .jpg. Yay!

I am posting to prove that 18 isn't all it's cracked up to be. This, too, calls for bullets.

I'll take skinny jeans over an S&M inspired dress/shoes and panty hose any day.

Even though your super-cute leather tote has diapers, toys, and gummies stuck to the lining, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say it's cuter than that dainty black purse (is that velvet?) held with pride in the picture above.

30-year-old gals can afford professional eyebrow waxings--this one's gonna cost me. I'm sure Lisa is uploading a pic of my caterpillar brows that curled up on the ends as we speak.

Even a low pony tail or hair that hasn't been washed looks better than an up-do.

Your 18-year-old self never had the chance to say, "Jack Michael, if you hammer hammer Mia one more time, no snack at the gym."

And finally...if your 18-year-old self knew just how good she could look after two kids, one husband, sleepless nights, countless time outs, breaking up fights, etc., maybe mom would have been a grandma a lot sooner!

Happy 30th Birthday!

Blah...

The above picture was supposed to be posted on Friday after Lisa received an agent as her 30th birthday present. I specifically chose this picture because the woman looks so happy running around her yard (bra-less?)--very similar to how Lisa celebrates any big moment. But, based upon our lack of blog posts, I'm sure all of you assumed correctly that nothing good happened Friday, except, of course, Lisa turning 30. I haven't really felt like posting, but am feeling a renewed sense of optimism. It's Sunday, so we have a new week ahead of us and maybe the positive energy I am putting out there tonight will be returned with some good news this week. Isn't that how The Secret works? And, I'm really looking forward to heading to Vegas on Thursday. It's going to be in the 80s and I'm hoping to hit it big on video poker (ha) or at the very least come back with a tan. So...here's to a new week full of offers.

A whole new low...

So I'm turning 30 in approximately 49 minutes, and do you want to know what I'm doing? Asking virtual magic 8 balls if we're going to get an agent for our book.

This is pathetic. 18-year-old Lisa would be totally humiliated that this is how her soon-to-be-30-year-old self is spending her birthday eve.

Hmm...I wonder what else 18-year-old Lisa might say to her 30-year-old counterpart. This calls for some bullets...

• Skinny jeans, really? Have you seen our butt lately?


• So, let me get this straight, you're married to the guy we dated in high-school AND you have 2 kids? Who are you?


• Do you at least have a cool job? I'm sorry, did you just say that you work in human resources? Good god, what have you done to us!


• *GASP* And what the hell happened to our stomach!?


• Whoa, Tara lives in Cleveland and she's got two kids too? Seriously?


• This has got to be some sort of joke. Next you're going to tell me that our little sister, Stacey, is knocked-up and married to Erik, my boyfriend's, excuse me, our husband's best friend. I'm sorry, are you nodding your head? NO! Shut the f*ck up. What the hell is going on here!?

Ooops, sorry about 18-year-old Lisa's potty mouth. She's probably drunk. Thursday nights were big party nights back in the day. Anyways, always fun to be reminded of how lame I am.

And seriously, if by some random twist of fate an agent is reading this, have some sympathy for a girl on her birthday. If nothing else, I'll at least have something cool to report to my 18-year-old self...

Nothing like a little Bass to cheer a girl up...

Well, it's no secret that things have been a little bit stressful lately with the agent hunt. Basically, we're on the edge of our seats waiting to hear back from agents. Today I had an unfortunate incident where someone called my cell phone from New York. I of course assumed it was an agent, cue the weak knees and the part where I ignore my screaming children and answer the phone. Turns out to be a guy I work with looking for help on a sales guide, p.s. he was a little put off by the screaming kids. Ever the consummate professional...ouch.

Anyways, my point is that a girl can use a little Chuck Bass in her life. He's better than ice cream. If you don't believe me please review this little excerpt from Monday's Gossip Girl:

Chuck: I'm evaluating colleges based on secret societies. Yale has the creme de la creme with the Skull and Bones. My goal is to get inside their inner sanctum.

Nate: How are you planning to do that?

Chuck: By showing up.

Seriously. Awesome.

A whole lot of nothing...

Absolutely nothing to post about--although I was disappointed to see that the nice Serena returned to Gossip Girl--I was really starting to like her bitchy side. What else? Oh, yeah, our inbox is empty. Just checked again...and...still empty. This is driving me insane! Here's to hoping for something, ANYTHING (except for rejections, of course). At least the Project Runway finale is on tonight. I will be forced to choose between refreshing our email and watching the show. Luckily, I can count on Lisa to do both at the same time. I don't have the luxury of wireless internet. After really looking forward to this week, I am feeling a little let down. There's always Thursday and Friday, I guess.

Damn you Christopher Columbus!

So last Friday was the best day ever, I think we ended up with something like 6 requests by the time the day was over, and now today NOTHING. Our inbox has literally been empty all day. Just around 5 o'clock it dawned on me that Christopher Columbus could be blamed for this issue. I officially hate him. He didn't even land on U.S. soil dammit. Stupid holiday.

Anyways, my only hope is that instead of celebrating Columbus Day by watching a Project Runway Marathon like the rest of us, that agents are instead spending their day off reading our riveting manuscript. So, I'm just assuming that tomorrow morning our phone will be ringing off the hook with offers of representation.

Do you hear me Christopher Columbus? You have a chance to redeem yourself here. Make it happen.

Today was a 5+ star day!

The requests kept on rolling in today! And I have to say, it felt SO good to open the one email I got to before Lisa and read a REQUEST! Now we just have to keep our fingers crossed that the agents will see exactly what we see in our manuscript--pure excellence. Ha. Off to the club house to print hundreds of pages on the fabulous printer--is this why I pay so much in rent?

Michael Sera is the new Seth Cohen

If you watched the O.C. then you know you had a crush on Seth Cohen. Just admit it. Seth was adorably geeky and you loved him and wanted to have his adorable, dark, curly-haired, gamer babies, right? I suppose part of this phenomenon can be blamed on the horrible acting and disturbing smallness of Ryan Atwood. Does anyone find that guy remotely attractive? His hands are like little paws. Eew. Anyways, I'm getting off track. My point is, any girl who watched the O.C. was in love with Seth Cohen in spite of the fact that he weighs approximately 135 pounds. He wore ironic t-shirts AND he could actually define irony. I mean, what's not to love?

I went to go see Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist tonight and I'm here to tell you that Michael Sera is the new Seth Cohen. He is totally adorably awkward and he makes me want to buy a spiral notebook just so I can write "Lisa + Michael, TLA" all over it with lots of little interlocking hearts.

Anyways, the movie is fab, and I have a new crush who looks WAY better in skinny jeans than I do. Bottom line: I need to get a life.

P.S. I just did a google search to find a picture of Seth Cohen for my post, and I have to say that seeing him again has brought back a lot of my old feelings.

I think we're going to need to put this to a vote....you tell me - Seth or Michael??

I heart Tim Gunn

Have you been watching Tim Gunn's Guide to Style? It's fabulous. It's great because the fashion victims on the show aren't wearing stone-washed jeans or over sized sweatshirts, they're just sort of average. They shop at the Gap and Banana Republic, but just don't really know how to dress their own body. I can totally relate! I mean, I'm not completely hopeless, but I will admit to practically living in Uggs from October - March. I know, I know, it's tragic, but they're comfortable and warm, so lay off, all right?

The only thing keeping me from sending in my application is the way they raid your underwear drawer. Can you even imagine?? I think Tim Gunn might pass out if he was forced to paw through my stretched out, holey, cotton underwear. It gives me the chills just thinking about it. I bet he secretly would love to use tongs or slip on plastic gloves before touching underwear and the producers just won't let him. Renegotiatate your contract, Tim! America will understand.

Of course, the humiliation of the underwear drawer would be totally outweighed by the amazingness of a Tim Gunn makeover. Last week, the girl on the show had a dress personally made by J. Mendel AND he gave her a pair of the most amazing Louboutain black stilettos that I've ever laid eyes on. She looked like a totally different person. I'm so jealous...
So, if my dreams of being a published author end up collapsing, I'm going to throw myself at Tim Gunn's feet and hope that he'll take pity on me. I mean, if my dreams are dead, I might as well look fabulous, right?

On that note, we've had some more requests come in over the past couple of days, so yay! We still have a ton of queries outstanding, so keep your fingers crossed for us. Sending our manuscript out to agents is SO nerve wracking. I spend about 75% of my day wondering if an agent is reading what we sent...ugh. We'll keep you posted.

Little faker...

Another shameless video upload--these are too big to email and since we only have about three people reading this blog, it's a great way to share videos! Lydia was fake coughing yesterday--it was during her dinner, so ignore her messy face. What's funny is she already has John wrapped around her little finger--he asked what kind of medicine we could give her for the cough. Sucker.

Doing what you love...

Ok, I realize that we haven't been very funny lately, so a huge apology to all three of our faithful readers. The truth is that our agent search has been extraordinarily draining. Honestly, we had no idea what we were getting into.

Those of you who know me, know that I don't take risks. The perfect example is that I've worked at the same boring company since I graduated college - 7 years! Don't get me wrong, it's a perfectly adequate job. It pays well, tons of flexibility so I get lots of time with the kids, but is it fulfilling? No. Do I jump out of bed every morning itching to start my work? No. Do I love it? Not even close.

Reading and writing has always been my first love, but I never dared to dream of becoming a writer. Too risky. Too impractical. Too scary. Even when I was choosing a major in college, practicality tempered my dreams and I ended up with a double major in Marketing and English Literature. While my friends looked for glam jobs in PR and advertising, I ended up at an HR consulting firm. I was practical. I was boring. I was safe. I read books on the weekends, and I entertained my friends and family with funny e-mails. Inevitably, people would comment on my writing and ask why I didn't write or blog or whatever, and I just brushed them off. Not for me, I would think. I can't possibly do something like that.

And then out of nowhere, Laura and I got this idea. The most amazing idea for a book. And I fell in love. Suddenly, all I can think about is our book. I dream about our characters and for the first time in my life, I stop reading and I write. I write to make Laura laugh. I write to make my family proud. But mostly I write for me.

Now here we are doing something that's completely selfish, totally impractical, and 100% fulfilling. So every request we get, gives me hope. Hope that I can do the one thing I've always dreamed of doing. And every rejection reminds me of why I never dared to dream this big before. Because when you dream big you often fall hard.

So...here we are. Hearts on our sleeves. Putting ourselves out there for the first time ever. It's terrifying. It's consuming. It's amazing.

Facebook

Thanks to Sarah (1st official blog follower), instead of checking our email every five seconds, I now have access to her Facebook page via her email address and crazy password--the same password we were assigned at UD freshman year, which consists of a random string of letters. I had a lovely time browsing her friends' pages and felt tempted to send friend invitations to random people I remember from college. But Sarah specifically said that if I post on message boards or send unsolicited invitations, my privileges attached to her account would be revoked. Don't worry Sar, I am taking this seriously. But thanks for the distraction. It is much appreciated. Maybe if we ever get an agent, I will have the guts to sign up for my own account just to prove that Erma Bombeck wasn't the only published author to graduate from good ole UD.

Waving the white flag...

That's it. We surrender. No more edits. We vow not to re-read our document making nit picky changes. We vow to remove all of our crazy posts on the absolute write forums inviting people to rip apart our first chapter and our query. We're done. Laura compared the process of getting edits from random writers on-line to being kicked by strangers while cowering in the corner in the fetal position. Ouch.

Anyways, this document is as done as it's ever going to be, and I'm not reading it again until we have an agent. That's final.

Rewrites...

Ugh, we love our book, we're so proud of our book and somehow we're now rewriting the first chapter AGAIN. We just can't leave it alone, it's like picking at a scab, you know it's going to hurt, you know you're not supposed to do it, but yet you're compelled. And the worst part...I think the revised first chapter is better. CRAP. Not like we can requery 40 agents and say, JUST KIDDING, that first chapter we sent you was just a draft, read this instead.

Anyways, I've done all the research, I know that this is a common rookie mistake in the world of queries and agent searches, but it still sucks.

Oh well, not much we can do now except wait and hope that someone requests a partial or a full, because this new beginning is going to blow them away. Well, at least until I think of something better...

The glass is half full...

One of the most amazing things about of writing as a team (and there are many...) is that often when one person gets down, the other person can talk them out of it. Now, we've gotten a few form rejections over the past couple of days and it's brutal. We are so proud of our book, and we both know that the right agent can help us not only get it published, but also make it a success. We realize that we're new to this and that we might be a little more work than established writers, but we also have a good idea and a fresh voice.

So, instead of being sad about our form rejections I'm trying to remind myself (and Laura) that these agents just weren't right for us. But each rejection is personal and we can't help but feel a little bit shocked when people say that it's not for them because, you know, our book is PERFECT.

Back to waiting and back to hoping. This will turn out better than the SHS poetry contest...I can feel it. And hey, if nothing else, at least our book doesn't rhyme.

Rejection sucks.

Being rejected is hard work. I don't care how many times I am reminded that agents are busy and can only take on so many clients via form rejection letters. They still don't want our book. I feel like I am back in English class senior year when my teacher held a poetry contest. I thought I had written the winning poem. It was amazing. Looking back the depressing verses were probably about my broken heart or some other equally embarrassing topic and I should have been prepared for the loss. It might have even rhymed (yes, I wrote Mary's poem in the White Party chapter). But still, when I saw my copy of the poem without a single teacher comment written on the paper, I was let down. It felt like he hadn't even read it. It hurts now just thinking of it :) I didn't have thick skin then and I don't have thick skin now. Rejection sucks.