Yesterday

I’m going to try to explain this, but I might not have the words for it. (Ironic, isn’t that?)

If you had told me yesterday morning at 7:30 that I would have a great day, I’d have bitten you with every bit of sarcasm I have, which is A LOT—just ask anyone who knows me. Around 7:30, The Authoress tweeted that she’d emailed the winners to Baker’s Dozen. I didn’t get an email, but most of you know this. Many of you read yesterday’s blog post. I was unhappy at best. Even around late morning, it still was not a good day. I was furiously typing my blog post, subjecting all of you to one of my darker moments. I’d say I’m sorry for that, but I can’t. I think it’s those dark thoughts that led to everything else. So here, in the best way I can write it, is what happened yesterday.

After that damn tweet, I kept refreshing my email. My inbox remained empty. An hour later—after so much hope that Gmail was having some kind of technical issue—I resigned myself to the fact that I wasn’t Baker’s Dozen winner.

I posted a status on (my personal) Facebook and one on Twitter, both of which said—straight up, no emotion necessary—that I didn’t get an email and I was out of the contest. My friends and family were sympathetic, which was both good and bad. Good because it was great they cared; bad because they couldn’t really understand. My followers on Twitter though, they understood. Several sent me messages, some of them saying they also didn’t get into the contest. I liked knowing there were others out there, others who had hoped so much for something that didn’t happen.

Even with condolences from friends, family, and followers, I wasn’t feeling better. I was still distraught. I was still sure that my writing was never going to be good enough to be published. If you’ve read yesterday’s post, you know all about this. These feelings are what led me to write the post. I published it before lunch and put links to it on Facebook and Twitter.

Not long after, things started to happen. People I didn’t know began responding to my blog post. (You can go there and read them, which I highly recommend if you’re a writer like us.) I don’t know how they found me—surely, somehow, through the magic of Twitter—but I loved their messages. Most told me not to give up. Most shared their own failures and how those failures led to success. One even made me laugh with her clever way of sucking me into her story. She wrote about her own Baker’s Dozen story—how her contest entry was a success except for the fact that no agent signed her. Wow. The way these writers expressed what they’d been through and what I needed to do was perfect. It reached me.

It was in the middle of reading these replies to my blog that, perusing Twitter, I came across a few tweets about #PitchWars. When I first saw the hashtag two days before, I assumed it was a one day contest and there was no way I could enter, not with Baker’s Dozen undecided. But the hashtag was still around. What was #PitchWars? I went to Brenda Drake’s blog and checked it out. It’s another contest, one that has a December 2 deadline. The writers who replied to my blog told me not to give up and #PitchWars was a way to prove I hadn’t. I was hopeful again. Hope is so important.

Sometime near the end of my flavor workday, I received an email from another writer. She’d come across my tweet, read the blog, and checked out my website. She wrote a story similar to FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE, she told me. She wanted to know if I’d like to be a critique partner. YES! Absolutely. Of course. MORE HOPE.

The icing on the day’s cake was my husband, who literally bought me cake for last night’s dessert. If there’s one random thing you should know about me, it’s that I LOVE CAKE. I’m considering making those three words bigger just to emphasize how true they are. I LOVE CAKE. (My bridesmaids, an uncle, my parents, and I made my wedding cupcakes—all 300 of them—a few days before the wedding because I knew it’d help me relax.) Cake, to me, can make almost anything better. My husband knew this, knew I didn’t get into Baker’s Dozen, and bought me cake. CAKE=HAPPINESS.

Day complete. Thank you to everyone who sent me messages of consolation, encouragement, and hope. You are all amazing.

Yesterday is over, but there are ripples. I have new Twitter writer followers and more people are reading my blog. I’m diving into #PitchWars and already the results are great. Even if I don’t win this contest, I’ve learned more and I think that’s key. There’s so much I need to learn. If I learn enough, if I have enough grit to keep going despite the odds, maybe I can achieve my dream.

Continue holding me to this, won’t you? Whenever I falter, if ever I declare I’m quitting, make me keep going.