The Writing Journey Part Deux: Getting Published

For those of you who enjoyed yesterday's Writing Journey, here's the second chapter: Getting Published. And once again, this is entirely tongue-in-cheek. I'm kind of neurotic about, well, everything when it comes to writing and publishing, so once in a while it's fun to sit back and poke fun at myself.

Anyway, when last you saw the slightly daft author, she had this, a finished, polished manuscript:
But it's not quite ready to be sent out. First, it needs a synopsis.
The doubt demons like to claw their way in at this point and say, "Dude, if you could write this story in a page and a half, how the hell did you make a novel out it?" *sigh*

Anyway, with the synopsis done, it's on to the query letter.
I'm not very good at these.

With the manuscript spit-polished, the synopsis synopsized, and the query letter written, it's time to send it. So with a few deep breaths and internal pep talks...
...it's sent.

And I wait.
Naturally, the wise option at this point would be to occupy my time with working on the next novel.
And that's what I do.

Usually.
Eventually, the responses come trickling in.

Rejections. Good times.
Rejections aren't fun. They're an inevitable part of this business, though, so I do my best to let them roll off my back.

If they don't roll off my back as easily as I'd like, I have methods of coping.
But then...

One day...

There comes an e-mail...
And sometimes it takes a minute to sink in (especially since I have a habit of reading my e-mails on my iPhone while I'm still in bed, so sometimes I'm not quite awake)...
But then it does...
You can imagine what happens next. You can, or you can just look at the picture.
Once the celebrating is over, it's time for the scary stuff. Like reading the contract.
Edits.
Scary deadlines.
But eventually, all of that is over, it's behind me, and once everything is signed, sealed, delivered, notarized, pulverized, tenderized, and super-sized, the book is published.

And I find myself wondering...
So...I go for a drive.
And the circle begins again.