Excuses? Excuses!!

I've been thinking, since the Conference, about what should get my focus right now. My instinct is to put the most effort into revisions, to put out a couple more key queries I feel are time sensitive (incuding to meet with Jason Allen Ashlock, when his generosity is matched by his availability) - but to largely curtail the querying process. It's an easy cop-out, of course - but there are a couple of logical points almost demanding the shift in effort.

For one thing, the fact that the manuscript will be in a state of flux for some time means: I no longer have a "finished product" I want to present. Because the revisions I want to do, I don't want to do "only" for this one agent. The feedback is too good to start versioning now. In any case, if I'm committed to The Ax and the Vase, I need to be committed to it as a whole object - not as one thing to one agent and another to another. Versioning is an unnecessary pain in the behind, in any case; who'd want to get involved in that?

As much to the practical point as that: querying right now, while advertising all over my blog and the SBC's, only tells agents - 'hey there, hi there; I'm moist about somebody else right now, but if you're interested, maybe I'll throw you a draft of what I'm shilling ...'

Um. Yeah, no.

As much as anything, and still valid I feel, is the simple fact of life that thre's only so much you can do and expect to manage any of it well. For that matter, there's only so much you WANT to do, barring a martyr complex, really. And I have no martyr complex - so ... not so much.

I spend a minimum of 40 hours a week working on administrative projects, and writing - at least, selling one's writing - is another one. It's not minor, and after the 80% of my working life spent on days dawning at six a.m. and working until almost six, the importance anything must obtain after hours like this to demand and compel further effort out of me is fundamental. Sure, I have half-day Fridays, and there are the weekends: but if you restrict authorial effort to two and a half days a week (or less, if you actually use those days for anything OTHER than the work of writing), you're shortchanging your work, most likely.

So here we are: I will have to backburner querying for some finite period. The revisions offer both the opportunity to shift focus temporarily - AND, for goondess sakes, to get back to *creative* work, which hasn't been extensive with everything going on. What a pleasure - and what a concept, for a writer!

So. The focus shifts - and the work suspends, so other work can be done. Dissenting opinion is welcome; I sort of seek perspectives here, if anyone has one. But this is my instinct. We'll see how it works!