The Schrodinger’s Cat Phenomenon of Writing

Ok, to sum up (and butcher) a theory of quantum physics, Schrodinger’s cat postulated that when a cat was in a room (no cats were ever harmed- it’s a thought experiment folks) in which poison was released- that before the door opened the cat was both alive and dead (again rough ROUGH summation for my point ;)).

I hypothesize that the same thing exists for writers. When we have sent out a requested partial or full, or even entered a contest- we are existing in both the realm of acceptance/winning and the realm of denial/not winning. We don’t know which it will be, so it could be both until that door is opened.

This week has been a wild one. Even though I said I was not going to submit to agents this year, I have found myself in a very nice position to have had both a full and a partial requested from two (or three- one is a two for one deal ;)) very well respected agents. For two different books.

I also entered three different novel contests and one short story contest. All of which are hanging out with that cat in the box right now and the door doesn’t open until later this month on any of them ;).

I will be sending out the requested items this week, but I already find myself in that odd neither dead nor alive position. I’m very happy and excited about the requests, but I almost don’t want the result to come back too quickly. If the answer is negative, it will pop the bubble. But even if it is positive, this limbo state (which I argue is unique and actually sort of enjoyable) will end.

This liking of the limbo is new and I think a result of having four unique series “on the boards” as it were. I will be disappointed if the results from the requests come back negative, obviously, the agents in question are very good and “on my list” of top agents I would like to work with. But at the same time, I’ve proven to myself that I can write more.

I like being the cat now ;).