What’s been up with me

April’s been a fabulous month so far. Fabulous.

Well, except for the whole surgery thing, and I signed up for that.

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I have a literary agent for my mystery novel!

Many writers have posted minute by minute updates on their searches for agents. I haven’t done that, for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is: I much prefer to announce results than process. Also: a lot of the things these writers post are, in a word, foolish. Don’t keep posting who you’ve been turned down by. Don’t keep posting who your “dream agent” is and how everyone else is just completely unimportant. People (such as, I dunno, agents) read these things. Really.

Anyhow: I sent my first query February 18, my last one April 3. I sent out 25 altogether and still haven’t heard from 10. One reason you have to query a lot — emails get lost! It was a nerve-wracking process that involved a membership to Publisher’s Marketplace (do yourself a favor: get one and stop worrying about it) and research and discussion. Other sites that have been invaluable are QueryTracker and AgentQuery. Get yourself the premium membership to QueryTracker; the extras are worth it and you’re investing in a great site. (And the forums have a lot of great, helpful, fun people who will help whip your query into shape.)

I have to sign and fax off the agent agreement. Whee! Happy dance!

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We surprised the kids with a Spring Break trip to Disneyland. We stayed at the Grand Californian, which is their big fancy new hotel outside of California Adventure. All of the rooms at Grand Californian either come with two twin beds or bunk beds; we got bunk beds and the kids had the time of their lives. The week cost a fortune — Disney has perfected the art of attaching a vacuum to your wallet — but the four of us had a great time together.

We discovered Sophia is Ms. Roller-coaster Girl.

The best thing we did was go to the fireworks one night — wow, do they know how to do fireworks — and then go to a late night cruise through the Pirates of the Caribbean.

We knew the kids were as exhausted by the whole thing as we were when on Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon we said, “Kids, we’re really sorry, but we have to go back to the hotel room to lie down,” and both kids said, “Yay! Us too!”

I can see doing this kind of vacation again.

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I had shoulder surgery last Monday. My left shoulder has been bothering me for about a year, and in the past couple of months it’s gotten worse and worse. It was finally diagnosed for certain as “calcified tendonitis,” which means calcium was building up in the muscles and tendons over where the arm meets shoulder. The bone had also rubbed into the muscle, causing a little hole. Turns out lots of people I know have had this had used physical therapy to cure it, but I decided to get the surgery.

I had thought it was going to be a short procedure with little to no recovery time. I almost had it right before we left for Disneyland.

Ha!

Turns out I got general anesthesia for an hour and a half procedure. When I was done I was all bandaged up and brought home, still groggy. I don’t remember much of the first night, other than I was so seriously impressed with the cold therapy machine they sent me home with: you wrap the plastic end around the injured bit, you load the cooler with ice and water, and a motor forces ice water to the plastic end, meaning you have a cold wrap for hours and hours. That was pretty nice.

Tuesday was horrible: the pain meds wore off, and the pain meds I had (including Vicodin) didn’t seem to do anything for me. I was home and could barely do anything for myself, because not only could I not use my left arm, I basically couldn’t use my left side. At night I couldn’t get comfortable, and I was up until 3am crying about what a stupid decision I’d made to have this damned surgery, because I was in pain and uncomfortable and never, ever going to feel good again.

Wednesday I slept on the couch a lot.

Thursday the doctor removed the gigantic bandage on my arm, replacing it with 5 bandaids. While moving my arm too much still hurt like a mofo, I started to be able to do many more things.

Saturday I went to a wedding. I kept my left arm plastered to my side, but I felt pretty good all night, and not just because of the open bar.

I haven’t taken painkillers in days (actually, that’s not true, I took one last night, but I hadn’t taken one since Saturday before last night), and while I can’t raise my left arm up, I am able to do lots more.

When the three weeks of recovery is up, I think I’m going to be thrilled I had this surgery.

If I ever do anything like this again, I’m getting prescriptions for sleep meds so I can just sleep through the agony of Day 2, though.