Stating the obvious, which somehow I missed
Lopate, editor of The Art of the Personal Essay (Anchor Books, 1994), believes that the true essay is never formless. “It follows a track of someone’s thoughts…”
– from The Practical Writer: From Inspiration to Publication
First agent down, second agent interested. Gave me some feedback on which sample chapters to write (and why) so now I feel more confident working on them. Kind of. I was just writing back and forth with Barbara about how we greet good news with tears and/or panic.
I told Brett last night that I realize that all types of crisis feel the same to me. Good crisis or bad crisis — it gets me high while it’s happening and then I crash. I greet acceptances and rejections (not run-of-the-mill rejections but the ones I have hopes pinned to) with the same heady explosion of emotion and then I have to come down from that somehow. I’m not very good at this.
I think this is why freelancing isn’t something I could do for my main income — it’s too up/down for me. Even the good respones feel depressing to me. I have to space all this out.
I keep figuring out what I’m bad at but am not so hot at figuring out what I’m good at. (Perseverance despite my flaws?)
God, too true about freelancing. It’s rough. Just plain rough. I like doing little bits of it but depending on it doesn’t work. I get horribly depressed, feel bad about myself, and want to hide in the closet. Really REALLY want to hide in the closet because it’s dark and quiet.
maybe through process of elimination, you’ll hit on something…:-)
I was a terrible freelancer — lived in a constant state of procrastination (well, I still do that) and dread. You seem *much* better at it.