Ginger, give Bicyclops my best! Five places, sheesh. Time to line the roads with bubble-wrap.

Just got a text from my Mom. Yes, she's discovered texting, she's very proud of herself. Dad's out of surgery and it went well. I will head over there as soon as he's settled back in his room.

Yeouch. Give him our best, Ginger!

Glad your Dad seems to be doing well, Vortex. That's exactly the kind of injury on top of injury thing my own father is good at.

Much ~ma Vortex-- glad that he's out and things have gone well. Now the real fun begins with recovery.

~ma to your dad, Vortex.

Vortex, best wishes for your father and his knees!

The thought of Vortex and Sparky in the same place ... well, I bet the students would be less stupid (hope springs eternal).

Connie, glad you got something so important to you! when my father died my mother tossed out pretty much everything that wasn't salable ... including his WWII flight jacket (which I'm STILL pissed about - it fitted me nicely).

Question for hivemind-- what do you do when you find yourself completely frozen?

The breakup with Former Agent was so sudden and so completely unexpected, and then instead of spending late spring/early summer submitting a project I was really excited by and getting back to work on another project that had been stalled for a bit in order for it to be ready for the fall submission rounds, I was spending all my time querying agents and eating my way through copious amounts of peanut butter M&Ms, stressing as I waited to hear back.

So now, I have New! Fabulous! Agent! and you'd think I'd be all raring to go, and I am, but... still frozen. Admittedly, the blow of hearing that the next young adult novel was kicked off the summer '09 schedule also threw me for an unexpected loop. What this does, effectively, is delay acceptance on that manuscript, which means my editor can't read my proposal for my new YA novel, which means I can't submit it to any other publishers, which, in a word, SUCKS. Especially since I've had ideas for TWO more YA novels, one of which is a ghost YA, of all things. But my hands are tied-- they get the option book unless Fantastic Agent can get me out of it.

But that shouldn't be such a HUGE deal, necessarily, because I at least have my adult work to fall back on and I am excited by it and want to work on it, except... frozen.

And those of you who know me know how weird that is. I mean, workaholic me-- frozen. I open the files and stare at them and... nothing. It's like my confidence is completely in the toilet.

ACK. What do I do? Any suggestions?

< /whine>

Much ~ma to your father, Vortex.

I'm glad he's out of surgery, Vortex.

I have no answer Barb, but if you figure it out can you share it with me? I've been frozen too.

Barb, this may sound uber-simplistic, but one of the thought replacement techniques I use with my coaching clients is posing the question, "What would it take for me to enjoy the process of__________."

You may not know the answer immediately, but the subconscious loves puzzles like this and will wander off to find an answer without so much as a by-your-leave.

Also, the question implies something really important...it is actually POSSIBLE for you to enjoy the process of becoming unstuck, finishing the project, being satisfied with the completion of same...etc.

That optimism...and permission to succeed...is often a big ol' jump-start.