Waiting on Paradise (figuratively)

This is the week that I hear (supposedly) whether I've been accepted to attend Viable Paradise this fall. While it isn't bothering me too much, it is. I tend to internalize my anxiety over such things and get grumpy while I'm waiting. (Afterwards, I sleep)

Since I'm also waiting on publishers, agent, etc., I think it is wearing on my nerves. I'm tense and a little....irritable.

I need to get to work finishing the novel I'm critiquing. Fortunately, I'm one-third of the way through the second read through. I'll give it a couple of hours today, a few Wednesday, and hopefully knock out the rest on Friday.

I think I will probably ask to attend the workshop at ArmadilloCon. I will probably just go ahead and submit the first chapter of the novel that I'm working on, which, if I take it to VP, will have been critiqued to death. But that's all I'm working on right now, so I think I'll send it in anyway. Their deadline is 7/6, so I have plenty of time for that.

So on tap for today...a couple of hours working on the critique, and then back to the grind. Got to 413 last night, but my first reader (husband)says it needs some work, so perhaps not forward progress but, I hope, improvement.

Pilgrimaging....

Put in a couple of hours finishing the critique I was working on. Now my 'reader' is checking my comments to make certain that I don't come off as too harsh.

I've never gotten the knack of adding smileys and that kind of thing to make the sentence "in my opinion, this might work better if you..." sound less harsh to some people. I did have one person get...annoyed...with me because I told her 'pilgrimaging' wasn't a word, and ever since then, I've been a bit paranoid about how I say things.

Turns out, 'pilgrimaging' IS a word in some dictionaries, just not my Encarta. I did apologize, but I evidently made her angry by saying she shouldn't use it. She didn't give me credit for my critique of a 70K novel. Oh, well, live and learn.