Tag: mistake

The Friendly (Not) Skies

I hate air travel.

I haven’t been on an airplane for three or four years, but it’s inescapable when part of one’s job is to present research at professional conferences, something I have shirked for a couple years through loopholes. But now it’s time, with a trip to a conference in San Francisco.

The thing I hate the most is logistics. I can’t just plan a trip for two (my husband comes with me) and get reimbursed for travel. Instead, I have to use the university credit card to book my flight while simultaneously booking my husband’s flight, not on the university credit card, so we can get the same flight. I did this on my iPad while in the school office (The School of Health Sciences and Wellness, which the Psych department is part of, and I’m part of the Psych Department.)

I am not proud to say I made a mistake and put myself on a flight a day later, which had to be fixed this morning and cost us $288 extra because, like all faculty, I have to find the cheapest flights, which are economy class. I had to buy a new ticket for the return flight and could not cancel the old one. Imagine my aggravation. It’s all my fault; logistics is a weak point with me.

Then there’s packing, which isn’t too bad as long as I remember to pack everything in the car.

Photo by Sheila Condi on Pexels.com

Then there’s waiting. That’s my least favorite part. I have to run a couple of errands before I go (including picking up a precious prescription).

Then the airport. Air travel in the US has become much more complex since I started traveling, and I’m grateful for heightened security, but it is a pain.

And finally, there’s motion sickness. (Yes, I have meds). And wondering if the door’s going to fall off your Boeing jet.

I now understand why people drink when they travel.

The Incomplete Dev Edit

Right now I’m adding for chapters to the beginning of Prodigies, in order to reveal the character better and capture more of the spirit of Save the Cat (in other words, placing the character in her before life, setting a theme, introducing a debate).

What frustrates me is that this book went through a dev editor, and I in good faith thought that I had done what I needed to in the book, only to be tipped off by a thoughtful agent who rejected me: “I loved the beautiful description you started with, but I lost interest in the characters.” I had to figure out for myself, given what I recently learned about plotting from Save the Cat, what I needed to do. This is something I couldn’t have figured out myself, given my familiarity with the characters, and something I needed the dev editor to pick out for me.

I’m ashamed that I sent this out to query with this kind of flaw in it. I have found similar flaws in other books of mine — I start right into the action, and apparently this is bad. 

I wish someone had told me.