It had to happen sooner or later, I guess. Even an upbeat incurable optimist has the occasional bad day, although it takes a lot to get us down.
Yesterday, a lot happened.
First, bugs invaded the cereal - and as it turned out, everything else in the pantry that wasn't sealed in an airtight container. EWWW!!!
Then I received notice of editor rejections for not one, but TWO of my manuscripts.
Holding onto chipper optimism by the skin of my teeth, I emailed a partial submission that an agent had requested. She wanted fifty pages and a query letter sent in the body of the email. There are so many ways that can go wrong that I'm not even going to try list them. I blind-copied myself (because I believe in computer gremlins), opened the copy when it arrived in my inbox, and discovered that the whole thing was centered and looked ridiculous, not to mention so hard to read that no sane agent would even bother to try.
Then my beloved cat, Freckles, gave me a hint as to why dogs have worked their way into my heart. He threw up a load of pilfered dog food on my computer cord connections. Despite my diligent efforts to clean all the gunked-up nooks and crannies, my pc insists that an unknown device has taken over one of my usb ports and I can no longer access my printer.
*SIGH*
So I whined to my sister during our online chat and sent her a sad blue emoticon. And I whined to my writing buddies and I whined to my DH and I whined to my perfect dog, Penny. I listened to all their words of wisdom and encouragement and went for a walk in the park and basked in Penny's unconditional love.
Then I fiddled with the email and re-sent it with the words Reformatted Willamette Partial Request in the subject line. The second time, I eluded the gremlins.
I threw away the insect-infested food and cleaned the pantry and sprayed the shelves for bugs, then laid down fresh shelf liners and re-organized and enjoyed feeling virtuous.
I picked another editor to query.
And when I found ants on the kitchen counter, I searched out their nefariously-clever entry point (an outlet cover) and foiled them before they could do any real harm.
I decided the unknown device and printer problems weren't going anywhere, so I curled up with my own personal Hero and my naughty cat on the sofa and watched Warehouse 13.
And today, which was tomorrow last night, is a very good day.
