Once the book landed at the prospective agent’s office, the wife buzzed the let’s celebrate motif. I resisted at first, but as in most matters involving her, have relented. The real celebration will be when an offer for representation comes. Tonight we’re off to dine at an establishment that doesn’t rhyme with Friendly’s. Huzzah!

Meanwhile, work on Velocity continues, albeit slowly. Rough weather and a savage cold have waged war on my motivation the past few days. No matter. Every step is a step forward, even when it measures half the width of a penny.

The downtime provided a chance to review Seven Steps on the Writers Path. It was brilliant the first pass, downright genius the second. Anyone who wrestles with the business that is writing should read this book. The path and journey they describe is very AA like, but quite accurate. Definitely worth further study.

Breakthroughs come in waves, first a small breaker, then calm, and lastly a massive blue crush smacks against the water. Writing is like that sometimes. Peace follows frustration. All too soon, a new conflict develops, more intense and perplexing than the original dilemma.

In late September, I restarted the query process. The letters netted a request for the first fifty pages, and from there a request for the whole manuscript. And today, after a series of revisions, The Ridge Runner is ready for the wild. Well, at least as wild as the prospective agent’s office gets.

It’s time for the next wave to crest.

Rejection has its place. For awhile I kept my rejection letters, scanning them once, never to revisit them. Few writers do, although there’s some who think it’s a nifty idea to post them on their web sites, complete with the name of the publisher, editor or agent that turned them down. But I had my pile, and then it hit me, why the hell keep these? These letters are the equivalent of bills already paid. I don’t keep paid bills around.

So I shredded’em. Just like nuking any other useless piece of paper, there was zero emotional response.

And that was the cool part for me, that it meant absolutely nothing to get rid of them. Why should it? They’ve already served their purpose.

I’m not trying to prove anyone wrong – I’m writing.

Before this site, I used to read other blogs, particularly those by writers. Call it blog envy. Diaries, journals, blogs whatever we call them this week – to me they are the same a low cost of entry podium to share ideas.

There’s one blog/journal I’ve followed for a bit now, evany.com. Originally it was a site, mostly static text, all the pages pink. Then the author added a journal, one that stressed function over elegance. It’s funny and sometimes witty. I can’t remember how I found it in the first place, but for some reason I kept reading. Recently the updates stopped. Perhaps they will return shortly?

The entry stoppage brings me to the real challenge of blogging – the burden of content rests with the author. Come to think of it, that’s the biggest challenge of writing as well…