I've reached a point where I feel (mostly) neutral about my unsuccessful journey, but once in a while the bleak reality punches me in the gut 😪

There's something so deeply frustrating about having to go through the query process >5 times 😪 Preparing all the materials, making new spreadsheets, etc..."I'm tired of this, Grandpa!"

Scrivener! As someone who writes out of order and then tries to stick things into a beat sheet later, it's great for sliding chapters around without scrolling through a 200-page document. Zotero is also a lifesaver for citation-heavy work

yknow, one day I'm going to have a heck of a perseverance story 😂

Regularly I am amazed at the accuracy of the advice "If you feel like you hate everyone, eat. If you feel like everyone hates you, sleep. If you feel like you hate yourself, shower. If you feel like everyone hates everyone, go outside."

although I would really appreciate SOMETHING working out eventually 🥲

honestly though, my 10 years in the trenches and various R&Rs have really helped me handle the behemoth task of my dissertation so even if I never get a book deal, at least my journey counted for something

idk maybe i'm just jaded as a decade-long querier but 2 years in the trenches is not really a "long" journey IMO

Phishing emails should never be titled "sad announcement." Almost had a heart attack seeing that in my university inbox this morning 😭

imagine that "use your own brain" and "make your own art" are hot takes in this day and age 🫠

Undergraduate edition: - organic chemistry - population ecology - neuroscience - music cognition - 20th century French literature tried to pick things from vastly different disciplines !

- research assistant - clinical audiologist - sessional instructor - teaching assistant - writer (unpaid vocation lol)

gritting my teeth through a conversation about my PhD like "oh is it hard to study with a young child?" "do you become a teacher after this?" "so do you speak French fluently?" 🤡 reminds me why I don't tell people what I actually do for work!

my invisalign is meant to set the stage for future restorative work and wasn't because of crooked teeth but I just got new refinements and tell me why this is going to take nearly FIVE years

Things that I never expected to take as long as they are: 1) literary representation 2) invisalign lmao it's literally a race to see whether I'll get my PhD, an agent, or finish my invisalign first

I will be on hiatus... soon... but the plan is to write write write write write into the new year... 😩 write my dissertation write another article write more novels write more shorts write in French WRITE!!!

seeing publication dates for 2028 and--- ;_; the way almost 15 years will have elapsed by the time I ever see a novel of mine in print (and that's being optimistic!)

In case anyone needs to hear it (aka me), you cannot control anything in this industry except your own writing (and maybe regulating your feelings about it?). At a certain point your craft plateaus and it's up to market alignment and a bit of luck

Anyway, I will not be engaging with any "yearly goals/accomplishments" content bc every single December/January, I end up in a funk specifically because my goals are never achieved

The nice thing about ruling out success prematurely is that you feel less disappointed when the failure ultimately comes to pass! And I mean, it'd be a pleasant surprise to get some good news, though unfortunately that doesn't apply to my case

A lot of people are being like 'yeah well XXX million amount of people are using ChatGPT so whether we like it AI is here to stay' and not taking into account that if the underlying companies don't prove profitable the venture capitalists will stop bankrolling them and those services will go down.

On that note, I should probably stay off the socials until the calendar passes my birthday. I find this period so disheartening re: my publishing journey and it has been this way for too many years 😞

Welp it seems 2025 won't be the year of securing rep either... My only goal for now is to survive the semester and write as much as possible over the next 5 weeks 🥴

As I read through 50 handwritten paragraphs, I suddenly realize this is the generation that never learned to cursive write??? Every single one of them prints!

I have no idea if my committee is aware of the editorial concept of 'stet' but my dissertation is the only place I can regularly use it and it feels great 😅

I have a story in this anthology! 👻 🇨🇦

Received what I strongly suspect is an AI-generated document for an OPTIONAL assignment I gave so students could receive feedback on /their/ writing 🥲

In about three years the entire university pivot to AI curricula and schools and programs is going to be so deeply embarrassing. We will all pretend it never happened and I will be standing there, looking at people with a mirror in my eyes. This is all so embarrassing.

Hmm I might attempt finish your book fall after all 🤔 I'm writing a thesis chapter but I only need to add ~30k to my villains YA sooooo

Gosh there's just something about cover reveals 🥹 obviously I can't speak from experience (yet 🤞) but it always feels like the moment where your beloved manuscript starts to take on its true form as a ~BOOK~

It's kind of poetic that the professor who inspired me to do my PhD will be retiring around the same time I finish

I'm also in a weird spot between projects right now. I waffle between YA and adult, always contemporary but often different genres, and it's hard to know which one to focus on for A) market reasons and B) branding reasons

I admit it is a bit harder to find the time to write fiction these days... but I keep reminding myself the PhD obligations are temporary.

I'm back to writing my dissertation and I'm pleasantly surprised that it has been fairly easy to pick up where I left off (even after a year!)

Work on your dissertation while the baby works on her dissertation 🤪

I've got the pre-back-to-school jitters eek

Happy 9 years of querying to me! ✨🫠 Persist, persist, persist, because it's truly not over until it's over.

Haha my first novel started with "It was a dark and stormy night", which I think is the actual first line of a wrinkle in time? 🤣

I have to believe one of my books will find its way to shelves eventually. I've shed far too many tears and polished far too many words to face any other, bleaker reality

Lol overheard the tour guide saying that LM Montgomery got a whole FIVE rejections "but she never gave up" 🤡

Hugh Panaro in the phantom revival??? 😱😱😱

updating my CV for reasons and the 'phd expected 2025' made me laugh 😆

While You Were Sleeping (1995) Never Been Kissed (1999) Phantom of the Opera (2004)

why non-pub people assume you're not published: you are a bad writer why you actually aren't published: can't sell this, have something just like it/too unique, agent/editor has quit, no space on list, trend has moved on 😔

I'm so tired of the temperamental weather, especially when trying to dress comfortably. 7 degrees and raining one day, then 20 degrees and stuffy the next (in Celsius, btw)

Prof: You've published a book, right? Me: No, no, trying to get a literary agent. Prof: Oh, that's right. You're still trying. Me: 💀 Yep, still.

I might be rambling, and I might be caught in a doom cycle, but here is the important part: If you're in publishing and you feel like you can't catch up and you don't know how to break out, you are not alone. This game is rigged. All we can do is love the work and try to maintain our sanity. 12/