That Midlife TODO List In Full

[kiev4am]

1. Finish rewriting book before I die, at the current rate of 15 minutes a day
2. Get agent in a shrinking, suspicious marketplace
3. Get book published in a see above
4. Retrain very fast and without it costing anything
5. Get new job with flexible hours, in an industry that isn't tanking, without having any experience in it, at close to middle

Comments

[michiru42]

It's TOTALLY doable! I did all of it this year. :)

The book: http://www.amazon.com/Demon-Renaissance-Drive-Elizabeth-Reuter/dp/1936564254/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322139989&sr=8-1

It's been out for under a week and sold maybe half-a-dozen copies so far, but still! After years of rejection letters I secured a non-vanity small-press publisher whose been doing their duty getting the word out, and so shall you!

For re-training, libraries can help you for free, and some government branches, but that depends on what you're trying to retrain in. Any ideas on what field you want to go in to?

[kiev4am]

Oh my God, that's awesome! Wow, well done :D And thank you SO MUCH for posting to tell me, because it really is inspiring to hear that it *can* be done (as you can probably tell, my above post was very heavy on the sarcasm). I finished the first draft a couple of years ago, got fairly 'meh' responses from agents etc. - although one agent did request the full MSS which I gather is a Good Sign - and I also shelled out for some professional manuscript critique which has been really useful. So I've started the rewrite, and I feel okay about it, but real life is just so goddamn busy.

It probably doesn't help that I've finally strayed into writing fanfic. Total procrastination, but it's fun, dammit XD

Retraining: want to dodge out of traditional IT/programming into web design. I've got a bit of hands-on experience and a few decent contacts so I'm hoping to gradually build up some bits of freelance work. Again, fitting it all into the Day Job and so forth is quite the challenge.

Thanks again for the encouraging reply :D

[michiru42]

*nod* The rejection letters are par the course. Stephen King wallpapered his bedroom with them before getting some short stories in porno magazines, before doing Carrie; Stephanie Meyer was turned down thirteen times before an assistant read Twilight; one of my favorite comic book artists, J.M. Linsner, stopped drawing for years because he was so crushed by all the nasty rejections he got. Then he picked up his pens again and created DAWN. :)

As far as fanfic goes, PAD and Mercedes Lackey were prolific fanficcers. Lackey still swears by it as a good way to get ideas. ^_- Don't knock it!

And thanks for your congrats. Still not tired of hearing it, since I, too, went through YEARS AND WHOLE REJECTED MANUSCRIPTS, DAMN IT!

I totally get how challenging it is for you, believe me, on the web design front. But you're right--if you've already got the contracts, then it looks like you've figured out how to proceed yourself. All I can say is, that's really awesome. Keep us updated!

[kiev4am]

I know, I really should remind myself of all the rejection letter stories. I mean, I haven't even racked up all that many yet. The thing I found most frustrating was how brief they were - I completely get that they *have* to be, because the agents and publishers get so many manuscripts, but you feel completely helpless when they don't tell you what it was they didn't like. That's one reason I paid for the manuscript critique (that and I actually had the money at the time, unlike now). At least now I feel like I have something to work with; I feel pretty lucky with the reader I got, actually... I just have to build a time machine to make the time to do the writing of it ;)

PAD wrote fanfic? Hee, awesome! That makes me feel extra happy about my RicStar efforts :D (They're below here if you're interested, she said shamelessly XD)