The Week of No Blogging

You may have noticed I pretty much wasn’t here last week. Probably not, though. Last week was nuts. There were highs, there were lows, frustrations, and feelings of success I have never experienced before. 

Let me go back the full week. It’s Friday as I write this, so last Friday my wife and I decided to throw the family in the van and go to autorama. It’s only an hour away, so it wasn’t a massive trip, but I had just heard Seth Rollins was making an appearance there. He’s my son’s favourite wrestler and the opportunity seemed too perfect to skip. As a bonus, the man helping Seth Rollins looked familiar. I’ve been a wrestling fan my whole life, so I was wracking my brain trying to figure out why as we stood in line. Then it hit me! The man in question was none other than legendary referee Tim White. I asked his to pretend to disqualify me in the picture but he refused and stated that he had never disqualified anyone in his career.

On Saturday, I took my son to a birthday party/sleepover only to find out that it was the wrong weekend. Luckily my son’s disappointment was quickly smashed by the plans to buy a bunch of junk food and invite some friends over to watch Spider-man: Into the Spiderverse. 

By the way, if you haven’t seen Spiderverse yet, you’re missing something truly special. Whether you’re a comic book fan or not, whether you like animated movies or not, this is something I feel like everyone should watch. It won an Oscar, for crying out loud! Just go watch it and thank me later. 

Sunday rolls around and the furnace starts to act up. I kept it running, but this would prove to demolish a good portion of the remaining week. More on that later. 

Monday passes without any real event. Work. Play rehearsal. And I call to have someone come look at the furnace. A lot of you can see where this is going.

Tuesday has be staying home from work until the technicians can diagnose my furnace. They do, and I need a new one. You might be thinking some technicians will always recommend a new furnace. But my furnace is almost 50 years old. Putting money into a furnace that old has never been recommended by anyone.

Now the real problem of the week settles into place. The old furnace has stopped working, and the new one needs to be ordered. I live in Canada, and it’s winter. For 2 days, we survived in the house with nothing more than those little space heaters for warmth. I have to say, they do an impressive job, but it was still cold ALL THE TIME.

So Tuesday, Wednesday, and most of Thursday go by like an iceberg floating in the Tundra. 

Thursday, I discover a twitter party event called Pitch Wars. Any unrepresented writer, with a finished unpublished manuscript, is invited to tweet a pitch for their book using the #PitMad hashtag. Agents taking part then browse these tweets and anyone who get a like from a literary agent is officially being asked to query that agent. 

ALTERED CARBON X BODY SNATCHERS

Eric Wikstrom sells his life one week at a time. But when someone uses Eric's body to assassinate a Senator he'll have to unravel a plot that threatens the world's privacy, free will, and may even have the President in its grips. #PitMad #A

— J.W. Martin (@jDubMartin) March 7, 2019

I’m proud and thrilled to let you all know that over the course of a few tweets, I got 3 likes!

I know what some of you are thinking: Oh, big deal. 3 likes. 

To me, it’s a massive deal. It’s not a lot of interest, but it’s the most interest/interaction I’ve had to date. I sent the queries later that night. Strike while the iron is hot, right?

And that brings us back to Friday. Life seems to be back to normal, at least for the moment. And I have to say, I’m pretty exhausted. This week was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. I can only hope that it turns into the next step in my road to being published, as well as many, many years of reliable heat in my house.

Fun fact about this post: The header image is the first of many visual changes that this blog will see over the next while. I’d love to hear what you think about it.