Venting

Is venting (i.e., bitching about something) no longer acceptable? Are we (yes, major generalization, get over it) not allowed to vent when we become frustrated? Are we supposed to just hold everything in and hope for the best?

In my opinion - hell, no! Venting is a part of life. It is the release of frustration, the ability to shout, stomp your feet, and then, in a major drama queen moment, fall back onto the couch and cuddle up with the cats, dogs, or whatever! If we cannot vent, then sooner or later, we will explode. It's a fact of life. Okay, maybe not a real fact of life, but holding everything in is not a good thing, not at all.

So, my 8 followers are wondering has he been paying homage to the Three Sisters this early in the morning? No. I've just been reading my way through the blogsphere and came across another post in defense of the query process and how people who are whining about it obviously don't love their job (i.e., writing). Okay, maybe the post didn't actually put it out there so boldly, but the underlying implication was easily seen.

I love to write. I hate the query process. I still query. I still agonize over every word in my query letter. I still love to write. I'm allowed to vent (i.e., bitch) when I get frustrated. Agents are allowed to vent when they get frustrated (i.e., writers bitching about the allegedly broken query system). It's all a part of life. Being frustrated does not equate (at least in my opinion) to not loving what you do. It equates (again in my opinion) to loving what you do so much that learning that a) some agents skip totally over the query letter and go straight to the submitted pages or b) if the query letter doesn't grab their attention they don't read the submitted pages or c) well, there's not another thing at the moment, amounts to a drama queen moment of whining about the unfairness of the cruel world of publishing.

In the end, the passion put into the whining is a de-stresser. I've posted about my frustrations with the query process. I haven't stopped querying. I haven't stopped writing. I follow blog after blog after blog, gleaning what bits of useful information I can glean so that, one day soon, my love of writing will be seen by the world at large.

So, excuse me if I bitch every now and then. Excuse me if I toss my tiara to the ground and kick it across the room. Excuse me if my frustration, every now and then, gets the better of me. I'm an artist after all. I happen to like my ears, so I'm not going to cut one of them off (Van Gogh, any one??) in a drama queen moment. In this Age of Technology, I'm going to blog about my frustration and hope that it doesn't bite me in the proverbial ass one day.

I suddenly feel so much better. I must get more coffee. The day is barely begun and I, suddenly, feel energized. I think it's the writing. Sometimes, the writing is better than . . .

S