Well, That Was A Squeaker

[dr_pretentious]

I just hit send on a grant application, with two minutes to spare before the deadline. I would have liked print the grant proposal out, look at it one last time for the night, sleep on it, reorganize paragraphs in the morning, move the commas and then put them back, all that stuff. I don't dare look tonight at how raw the whole document is. That's not my problem anymore. That's the grant committee's problem. Now my job is to put the whole thing out of my mind until somebody emails to tell me I got it or didn't. My job is to send something else out, and then something else after that, so no matter what rejections come back when, there will always be a submission of some kind still under consideration somewhere.

Oh, crap, that really was a raw document. Wasn't it? Must not look!

This job is really hard.

Comments

[showingup.livejournal.com]

Onward! Ever onward...

[citabria]

So ... when's the last time you had a fixed professional deadline like this? Or, in other words, I think you'll get the hang of this (including pacing) after you've done the job for a while.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I find that it's hard to get a firm deadline from a small press. In my experience so far, the people running them have other day jobs, so they're uneasy asking for punctuality they may be unable to reciprocate.

The job in question is the same old writing-into-the-void thing I've been doing for ages now. What makes it hard is balancing the constant possibility of acceptance with the constant likelihood of rejection. Actively courting rejection on a routine basis is just the kind of thing our social primate brains don't groove on.

[citabria]

Exactly! But if you start dealing with things with real/hard deadlines again, I have complete faith that you'll get better at meeting them. It's a skill set like any other.

As for the writing-into-the-void .... yeah. I get that.

[kistha.livejournal.com]

Luck!

[j'aime wells (from livejournal.com)]

What grant is this? Job as in a new job?

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

An anonymous Vassar alumna established a grant to be awarded annually to a Vassar alum over the age of 40 who would need to take a year off from his or her day job to pursue a much-desired endeavor. Past recipients have done wacky things like play drums in an all-girl rock band, and heartbreaking things like search Uganda for the body of a politically-assassinated sibling. My project will not cure cancer or the common cold, it is not especially noble, but if the question is how much I desire my endeavor, I challenge anyone to want anything more than I want to get the Beltresa novels into publishable condition. Were there a desire-o-meter with electrodes that could be glued to my scalp, I could out-desire every other frustrated fortysomething Vassarian on earth. Well, except maybe the guy who wanted to find his lost brother, but he has already had his grant year, thank goodness.

No new job. Just the same crazymaking challenges of trying to put my books out into the world.

[j'aime wells (from livejournal.com)]

What a great grant idea.

If it's about desire, I bet your raw document will hold up just fine. Best of luck!

[thunderpigeon.livejournal.com]

Did my critique help--or did it just give you more to worry about?

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

It was very helpful. I went with almost all of your suggestions. You probably saved me several hours of work, and there are a couple of spots where the tone I intended to convey would probably never have come through, had you not told me I was sending the wrong signals. Thank you for everything!