{"id":2198,"date":"2010-06-26T04:22:17","date_gmt":"2010-06-26T08:22:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=2198"},"modified":"2010-06-26T04:23:13","modified_gmt":"2010-06-26T08:23:13","slug":"the-need-to-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/the-need-to-change\/","title":{"rendered":"The need to change"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I picked up this sign at institute last Wednesday. The lesson was on our desires; specifically, how the thing that we truly desire deep down is often the thing that we get.<\/p>\n

The main reason I posted this sign on the door was to motivate me to get a better job than my current one.\u00a0 However, it applies to so many other things as well.<\/p>\n

Take writing, for example: if I’m going to actually turn this writing thing into a full time career, I’ve got to bust my butt to make it happen.\u00a0 Writing a paltry 250 words each day on a novel you’ve been working on for the past twenty years just isn’t going to cut it.<\/p>\n

I got two form rejections today, and that made me realize that I need to be more serious about submitting my work.\u00a0 So instead of working of working on Worlds Away From Home,<\/em> I researched a slew of agents, rewrote my query letter for Genesis Earth,<\/em> and sent out four carefully prepared and researched submissions.\u00a0 I don’t want to spend any more time bouncing around from job to job than I have to–I want to break in and make this writing career take off.<\/p>\n

So far, I’ve gotten approximately 14 rejections for Genesis Earth<\/em>: ten form rejections, one personalized rejection, one rejection after the partial was requested, and two that I haven’t heard back on but have been out for so long they’ve probably been rejected.\u00a0 Interestingly enough, rejection itself is not that hard for me to deal with: it’s building the motivation and nerve to submit to the next place that’s tough.<\/p>\n

But I’ve got to do it.\u00a0 I feel kind of like Hachimaki from the anime series Planetes,<\/em> who quits his job without taking the severance package when he applies for the Jupiter mission.\u00a0 If he has the safety net, he knows that he’ll get lazy, so breaks goes out on his own, even sleeping on the streets for a while during the initial tryouts.<\/p>\n

I haven’t quite fallen that low yet–I’ve got an apartment, a bike, and a job, even if it’s only a subsistence level one.\u00a0 But when it comes to long term careers, I’m putting everything into my writing right now–there isn’t anything else.<\/p>\n

It’s still discouraging to get rejected, but I’m still very optimistic that things will work out.\u00a0 Even if everyone rejects Genesis Earth,<\/em> I’ll have Mercenary Savior<\/em> ready to submit before the end of the year.\u00a0 It’s just a matter of time–I just hope it happens soon.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, here’s the opening sequence from Planetes<\/em>.\u00a0 Such an awesome series–I’d take a job with Debris Section in an instant!\u00a0 Even garbage collecting is cool when it’s IN SPAAACE!!<\/p>\n

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I picked up this sign at institute last Wednesday. The lesson was on our desires; specifically, how the thing that we truly desire deep down is often the thing that we get. The main reason I posted this sign on the door was to motivate me to get a better job than my current one.\u00a0… Continue reading The need to change<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[68,44,32],"tags":[416,89,42,231,30,8,417,321,186,387,599,232,312],"class_list":["post-2198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bsh","category-ds","category-ge","tag-anime","tag-career-decisions","tag-frustrations","tag-hope","tag-life-decisions","tag-writing-in-general","tag-planetes","tag-rejection","tag-submitting","tag-the-real-world","tag-thoughts-reflections","tag-why-we-write","tag-work","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-zs","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2198"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2219,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2198\/revisions\/2219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}