Nervousness

Just in case some of you out there think that "rejection nerves," the queasy feeling you get when sending off a short story or manuscript to be published or rejected, vanishes after you've been published.  Hardly.  I sent off five copies of "Great Sky Woman" two weeks ago, and there is definitely a part of me just dying to hear the comments back.  Betsy Mitchell, my editor, left a somewhat cryptic message on my voice mail, "news about my manuscript," and I couldn't get in touch with her for a couple of days.  I wondered if they'd decided not to publish me, or delayed it, or some monstrous problem with the concept, execution, or title had come to light.  Ugh.  It was hard to sleep those nights, and believe me, I was exhausted from the moving stuff (cleaning out two storage bins, packing 'em on a humongous truck for the trip south).  I didn't need that.  But ultimately, all you can do is the best you can do, which I did.  Turned out that the news was that "Great Sky" will be published by the One World imprint, which handles African-American writing.  Then it will also be distributed through the usual SF channels.  This could be a very good thing.  The point is that my stomach was just twisting into knots, and I had to be very very careful to breathe and release the tension--otherwise my appetite and general mood was pretty trashed.
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Back home now, and there are a ton of things to do.  Big news in a few days (I hope) and will keep everyone posted.  Oops!  My stomach's knotting again...