The End of the Road

Life just gets more and more bizarre sometimes, doesn't it?

I arrived at work this morning, to find out that everyone thought I had called in sick. Apparently, there is another Elizabeth who works through my temp agency and she called in sick this morning, and nobody bothered to get the names straight. Thank god, they didnt' call in a temp to replace me today, or that would have really sucked. When I called my temp agency, the office manager actually said, 'Elizabeth, didn't you call in sick this morning?'

Uh, that would be no. I think that I would remember calling my temp agency unless I was sleepwalking, which would really have been something since I actually had to look up their number when I got to work this morning. Just another little corporate snafu. Plus they finally caught on to the fact that I was checking my outside email at work, and cut me off at the knees, so now I can no longer check either of my outside email accounts unless I'm at my night job.

I so need a new computer.

In other news, just in time for Halloween, I received a 'dear author' letter from TOR for my submission to their new chick-lit line. Despite the fact that I met Natasha Panza at our Golden Apple Awards reception, and I mentioned that in my letter, and wrote 'requested materia'l on the envelope. Somehow it's fitting that I get a rejection letter on Halloween for a manuscript with a straight to video horror movie queen as the protagonist. Maybe that's what I should have called the novel 'Straight to Video'!

So that's it for Nearly Famous. I've been rejected by about 25 agents now, some twice, and I just can't do it anymore with this manuscript. Four years of my life, on and off, I've spent writing, and revising, and rewriting. Maybe I just missed the boat with this plot, or I just don't know how to wrangle it down until it's manageable. I've gotten positive rejection letters but it's not enough right now to keep plugging away. Plus, I have too many other stories in my head that are waiting to get out that I need to write.

Perhaps one day, I'll revisit Julia, and Ryan. The characters are too viable not to do something with, if not precisely in this form. I just dont' know what to do anymore to fix the problems. Nora Roberts said that she never gives up on a manuscript, she wrestles with it until she wins. Well right now this manuscript is kicking my ass!

I hate to sound whiny, but this was the second manuscript that I wrote and it's near and dear to my heart. It combines two of my passions acting and reality TV.

I'll continue Julia's blog over at juliachamberlain.blogspot.com over the next couple of months intermittently as ideas come to me, but it's time to move on and to move forward.

So R.I.P. Nearly Famous 2001-2005. I'll miss you.