Stymied.

Chapter Thirteen is enough of a mess that I think I need to fix it -- maybe rewrite entirely -- before I go on to Chapter Fourteen.  Feedback from anyone who's caught up on reading would be really, really great.  In the meantime, well, I don't count editing words toward my new wordcount, and I'm not going to change my goals (Chapter Fourteen will be up May 1st!).  So I need something else to be working on in the meantime.

Wish I knew what.

ETA:  My lovely and talented editor has just informed me that she never read the middle third of Chapter Thirteen.  WELL NO WONDER THERE ARE PROBLEMS.  XD   Seriously, Megan is always the first to snipe at my tendency to blather irrelevantly in the middle of the text, and I cut where she tells me to cut.  So when she had reviewed the chapter, and not made copious notes in the middle bits, I said "huh.  I guess it wasn't as messy as I thought!"  and posted it.

Unfortunately, I had asked her to check if it was done.  So since I had been discussing the last bit of the chapter with her, she checked to see if that was a good note to go out on, not 'is the chapter as a whole done?'.  CURSE YOU LANGUAGE AND YOUR LIMITATIONS!!!

Still want feedback from my faithful readers as to what the worst bits in the middle are.

Still need to figure out what else to work with while I edit.

Bah.  (I feel much more cheerful about the mess, though).

:-(

If I had one wish at the moment it would be that someone else could write my agent letter for me.

Seriously.

I finished Running In Her Veins in August 2008.  It could still use further editing, I am sure, but it is about as polished as I can get it on my own, without serious and intensive feedback.  Obviously I am not unbiased, but I think it is definitely worthy of publication.  I think my baby would do well out in the world.

Expressing that belief, along with a summary, in a letter to a stranger... seems to be impossible for me.  I have procrastinated and left many a half-completed draft behind me.  I don't know what it is.  Am I just this afraid of rejection?  I cannot describe how frustrating it is to look at the words 'Agent Letter' on my to-do list day after day and just feel... helpless.  Stranded.  Unable to progress.  It is the stupidest fucking psychological block and I want it gone, gone, gone.

It should not be this hard.