On Sub! and Other News

I’m just getting back to work and writing after being sick.  I feel like Rip Van Winkle–I went to bed when it was still winter, and when I woke up, it was spring!  To be honest, I’m finding it a little difficult to get back to the writing today.  There are renovations in the apartment upstairs, I’ve forgotten what my novel is about, and also, I’m on sub.  What??

That’s right: I’m on submission! With only 75 pages and an outline, my agent and I have decided to throw my little rough draft to the sharks and see who snaps it up. Crazy?

Yes!  What the heck were we thinking??

Perhaps this is all I need to tell you about not being able to concentrate on my novel.  Any writer would say: Of course you can’t concentrate! It’s a miracle you can put on your pants! You’re on sub!

And any non-writer would say: What the heck does ‘on sub’ mean?  Also, your pants are on backwards.

Basically it means that a number of carefully chosen editors are reading my pages right now and deciding whether or not they want to publish them.  Or rather, the editors are not reading them because they are in lovely Bologna, while I google them and chew pen lids like gum.

But enough about me.  In other news: I got a grant!

No matter what the editors I’m subbing to say, The Canada Council has decided that my work in progress is worth supporting, which, honestly, feels really good.  I didn’t get the Toronto Arts Council or the Ontario Arts Council grants I had applied for, so I wasn’t holding out much hope for this one.  Coincidentally, I met one of the TAC jury members who rejected my manuscript just days before I got the news and she was quite hilarious about how subjective the process is. I think she was just being nice, but still, her imitation of trying to come to an agreement about what makes a good submission with the experimental poet who didn’t believe in plot was like a one-woman show.

In other, other news, I’m author of the month over on Pub(lishing) Crawl! I’m a little late posting about this and unfortunately the give-away is already over, but you can still have a look at the interview, where I spill the news about the book I’m subbing at the moment.

Finally, in honour of my new-found, Canada Council wealth, I signed up for SCBWI Niagara! It sounds like a great conference and (for now) they’re still not sold out, so if you are in the Ontario area, have a look!