A bunch of stuff

I'm trying to collect little quirks. I feel like adding quirks into my stories make the characters and plots and relationships come alive and feel real. I probably feel that way because it's absolutely true.

Like, so Ferand is this weird foreigner and everyone in the family thinks he's really weird at the beginning. I'm still developing his potential quirks, but they include growing a full beard and standing up while eating. The beard thing is important, because after a little while he'll shave it all off with no warning. Andrew, the narrator, will ask Ariane, the main charcater and Ferand's wife, about it. "Oh, I always hated that beard," Ariane will say. "So we made a deal: he can grow a beard for the first year and last year of our marriage, but he has to be clean-shaven all of the time in between." I like that because it also gives them a little personality for doing something silly like that. Now, whenever Ferand starts to annoy Ariane, she can tease him by threatening to hide his razor.

I mean, I don't want to toot my own writing, but I'm having a really fantastic time with this. I feel totally confident about everything I'm writing except for that there are a lot of characters, and that worries me. But other than that, it's on course to be among the best things I've ever written.

Meanwhile, I'm resigning myself to the possibility that I might have to self-publish The Selfsame Chime. I think it makes sense as my first novel and so for as much work as I might put into The Indomitable Witch of Clives, they can't be out of order. I still have a few more agents to send The Selfsame Chime to, but I guess I've done an about face on my previous policy of "if you send it to a bunch of agents and they don't want to represent you, that means you suck and you shouldn't try and publish it anyway." The thing is, none of the agents have really read it, so they only think my query letter sucks. I mean, I'm certainly open to it sucking, because there are various biases (both recognized and unrecognized) that most of my readers so far have had, and so even if they all tell me it's good that doesn't mean it is.

But all that to say, I'm devoted to the idea of making that my first novel, and I am prepared to go the self-publishing route if that's what's necessary. I don't totally know how self-publishing works, but I assume this means I'll be the only one working hard on making it work. I have to be its only salesperson, trying to convince family and friends to read it and then constantly pressing them to recommend it. I have to go in to local bookstores with a copy in hand and try to get them to sell it. And I have to be okay with months passing without selling a single copy.

But I have a lot of confidence in it, and you know, it'll be great to see something I've written and put my heart into in published form. So I'll be writing to more agents this week, but I now have a back up if they all say no.