AKA, Random Author Chick is Random this week. The publishing industry has been fairly quiet this week. Life, itself, however, has not. We’re talking DEFCON levels. So what does a writer chick do when the random gets out of hand? State of the Author post. Yeah…

• I gave away an office supply on my website this past week. A Rhodia notebook. I had 23 comments as entries. I knew one person who entered. Now THAT has pretty awesome. The general random part? The winner hasn’t contacted me yet. Must figure out what the policy is going to be about that. Hmmm.

• I received my first major book publisher rejection (fortunately very polite) this week. Now I get to weigh the pros and cons of printing and snail mailing a submission package to the one other major publisher that will consider unagented work, or go with a much smaller publisher that takes unagented electronic submissions. It’s actually something that has to be carefully thought about since cash money is generally an issue. Time I can commit to. These things take time.

• So, if not having an agent is a hurdle, why don’t I go that route? That’s a much more involved story than I want to get into. The short answer is that I’ve been burned by less than reputable agents in the past. I know most agents are good and professional people, I’ve got that “once bitten, twice shy” thing going – only squared. And though I could probably get some feet in the door that I otherwise couldn’t, I’m also dealing with the Catch 22 of time spent trying to get an agent is time not spent in trying to get the book published. We’ll see if I made the right decision.

• Word counts on new projects are happening. A bit more sporadically than I would like, but I did mention the DEFCON chaos levels, right? With the projects at the Day Job coming to a head after 4 months of prep work, a sick puppy, a broken car, and house issues all hitting at once, word counts come in when and where you can get them. Most of my writing has been at my Secondary Starbucks while sharing a car with my husband. But they are happening, because word counts are IMPORTANT, darn it.

So, there’s the state of the author – she’s frazzled, freaked, and freaky, but she’s working on it. And if you want to see the crazy lady in person – I’m participating in ArmadilloCon 32 in Austin, August 27-29 and FenCon in Dallas September 17-19.