Fizz, Flamingos and Flowers

So last night I had a mini celebration, as I just submitted my first manuscript. Yay...

I know I could be typing exclamation marks, going crazy with capital letters, adding to the excitement with superlatives and synonyms; but you see, I am a touch neurotic. Oh I know, it's surprising anyone can put up with me!

I awoke this morning—after all of three hours sleep—with a headache that reached right behind my, now bloodshot, eye. As I sit here typing, sitting in bed in my pyjamas and unwashed hair, I can't help wondering why I do these things to myself.

Before I elaborate, I feel the need for a musical interlude.

'Here baby, there mama, everywhere, daddy, daddy

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair.

Flow it, show it, long as God can grow it

my hair...'

I've actually never played in Hair the musical, though I am a great fan of Joseph and his Technicolour Dreamcoat—perhaps another essential wardrobe item?

Anyway, where was I, oh yes—giving myself a migraine.

I did, I suppose, have a little too much fizzy sparkling, so that was mistake number one. Mistake number two was re-reading my (already sent and subsequently too late to do anything about) submission for the tenth time. However, my third mistakes were the ones that tipped me over the edge. Yes; plural.

In addition to all the mistakes I'm not experienced enough to see; I still spotted typos, inconsistencies, ill-positioned punctuation and an ending that needed to be past-perfect tense, but was just past. Oh and in my email I used the word 'completed' to describe my manuscript, rather than 'complete', or 'full,' or 'draft'. A little embarrassing.

Agatha was very kind though. She said her first manuscript was never published and her second novel was repeatedly rejected until she changed the ending, so she told me not to give up hope. She also reminded me about the frogs and the butter from last week, in case I had already forgotten.

So rather than continue to obsess until what might be Christmas, I decided to spend this morning thinking of all the things I am going to do to instead.

Firstly, I'm going to have a shower, and wash my hair—in a 1980s shampoo commercial kind of way.

But then, I'm going to go to my favourite second-hand book shop in my favourite part of town. I'll by-pass the chocolate shop—today I think will be a pink-flamingo—and I'll buy a bunch of flowers for our neighbours' birthday. The sun is out so I'll stroll through the park, listening to today's episode of So you Want to be a Writer—a reading Sophie Hannah's Agatha Christie mystery—then I'll do some practice and go out for Japanese this evening.

Oh and tomorrow morning, I get to start my own murder mystery, in a cafe, with a group of fellow writers! Yay! It all sounds pretty great huh?? Oh, I feel so much better and now I am really am excited, exceedingly elated, extremely enthusiastic and EXCEPTIONALLY ECSTATIC!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pass the champagne!!