Sometimes when your manuscript is on submission........

So when I parted ways with Shelfstealers late last year, I spent a good 5-6 months doing some heavy duty editing, revising and major rewriting of R.A.G.E. in an attempt to get it submission-worthy again. When I felt it was as good as it was going to get without the help of a professional editor, I sent it out once again into the big, bad world in the hopes that a publisher out there somewhere would love R.A.G.E. as much as I.

Normally after I've sent my baby out on submission I spend my time checking my email obsessively, desperately hoping that R.A.G.E. is being read at this very moment and X publisher has to contact me immediately just to tell me how much they adore and want to publish my book. In between the email-checking, I would continue on with my writing, firm in the belief that R.A.G.E. will be such a rip-roaring success that  fans the world over will be clamoring for a sequel.

Well, I'd already written the sequel and gotten a darn good start on the 3rd book in the series and let's face it, I was exhausted after 6+ years of constant writing and editing. So instead of twiddling my thumbs and thinking dark thoughts directed at the publishing industry as well as inward at my compulsion to write, I focused my energies elsewhere.

I learned  how to crochet (courtesy of YouTube) hats, booties and blankets.

And flowers....

Lots and lots of flowers.

I faced my fear of tall ladders and painted the family room with the 20 foot ceilings

I turned the old Rex Jet wagon from my childhood that I'd found rusting in the field behind my parents house from this.....

...to this.

And in having success with the wagon I begged the old Schwinn Tandem bike off of my parents as well, turning it from this....

....into this. It's still incomplete, needing seats, the chain put on and probably a professional adjustment from a bike shop before it's ride-able.

Now here we are in the middle of the summer and I'm running out of projects.

But that's okay because there is excellent news on the horizon publishing-wise. Stay tuned for an announcement in the next month or so.

I may even open up a word document and start writing something new to calm my underfed, compulsive writing demon.