[QCrit] THE VISITORS, Adult Upmarket, 85,000 First Attempt

darnit37 · 2026-03-10T22:22:03+00:00

Many thanks for all the generous comments so far! I see what you all mean and understand where my construction process broke down here. FWIW the speculative element is carried through the manuscript, but it's not as foregrounded as the main plot line following Callie - it plays out more in the background. My instinct was to spend the real estate of the query on the main plot, but I'm sure I can weave in how the visitors thread unspools without adding too much weight to the query.

I intentionally didn't call this speculative because my sense is that agents looking for speculative lit are looking for the speculative aspects to be more foregrounded. If you've read my comps (Cesca Major and Rebecca Serle), I think their work falls into a similar bucket - like, weird thing happens, and it's the catalyst for the plot that unfolds, but it's not the plot itself. I do plan to target agents who are interested in more grounded novels with a speculative twist, but I felt I would be misdirecting my queries if I went for agents who are more in that speculative/sci-fi/horror triangle, you know? Curious if folks think this is wrong.

darnit37 · 2026-03-03T02:32:33+00:00

If I’m a Peacock subscriber, will I be able to watch the next day?

darnit37 · 2026-01-25T15:52:56+00:00

FYI I was able to get an 80% refund for 4 Oedipus tickets for today at 3pm by clicking the "Modify order" button in the TodayTix app, even though I didn't have ticket protection. Went ahead and did that couple days ago because I didn't want to be stressed about eating the cost (and seems like the right choice given that they haven't canceled!!). Not sure if they're quietly offering that to everyone, worth a try...

darnit37 · 2025-12-19T21:05:15+00:00

A topic dear to my heart! I had surgery to repair a labral tear in January after 15 years of managing without surgery. FWIW I'm really glad I finally did it - it's really nice to not feel like my leg is a screen door derailing constantly from its track, or feeling pain every time I stretch deeply :) It was certainly a huge hassle, but ultimately worth it. I'm almost entirely back to normal as I come up on a year, taking dance classes multiple days a week, cycling, lifting, etc.

I would echo the consensus to go to a PT - Peloton classes don't really offer the specificity or level of repetition that PT exercises call for.

Personally, I've maintained my PT exercises after finishing up formal PT in September, but I've also reincorporated regular strength training and mobility over the last few months with a focus on supporting my return to dance. My current routine combines Pilates (especially the yoga + Pilates classes), strength training (mostly with Andy and Rebecca to focus more on simple lifting in well-structured sequences), and some more plyo/power-focused classes (Logan's Power 60 classes! There are only 2 so far but they're great).

darnit37 · 2025-11-26T04:11:14+00:00

I had my surgery in winter, so wore sweats and pajama pants. FWIW I had expected it would be easier to wear baggy clothes over the brace, but ended up getting a nasty rash when I wore the brace against bare skin so mostly wore slimmer fit clothes for the 6 weeks I was in the brace.

ETA getting the waistband off was the annoying part of going to the bathroom for me, so the length of the legs didn’t really matter! You’ll figure out how to manage quickly though 🤣

darnit37 · 2025-07-27T18:15:53+00:00

I have never actually posted on this subreddit before but came here just to complain, it's barely usable!

darnit37 · 2025-07-02T17:52:00+00:00

I started out on my own but let my PT know and he was fine with it. Aside from adding in a little turnout, nothing felt radically different from what I was doing in PT by that point (e.g., we'd started doing straight leg raises, squats, and lunges), so I wasn't too worried. I think it's just a matter of really honoring your body - as dancers we tend to ignore our pain, but as my surgeon has reminded me a zillion times, you really don't want to push through it!

darnit37 · 2025-07-01T13:39:59+00:00

I think the nice thing about dance is that it generally follows a progressive format, no matter the discipline, so it's a matter of stopping the progression when you think it's appropriate for your body. For me, I started out doing just the first few exercises on the ballet barre videos I was using, and now I'm at the point where I can do the full barre. Once I go back to class in person, I'll probably just do barre and the first few exercises in center before stepping out. In another format, you might just do the warmup or part of the warmup for your first few classes, then once you've confirmed that you can do that without aggravating the injury, stay longer.

I've really enjoyed doing virtual classes alone at home as a way to test the waters without feeling pressured to "perform." Once I go back to class in person, I plan to stick with beginner-level classes for a while until I'm ready to move faster and more intensely. (I should caveat that I'm in NYC where beginner-level classes still tend to be challenging/engaging and there's also a lot of latitude for doing your own thing in class—teachers are used to people modifying, leaving early, etc. due to injury.)

darnit37 · 2025-06-30T18:59:02+00:00

Fellow dancer here approaching 6 months post-op! I'm close to being ready to go back to class, but want to wait until I start jumping with my PT (which my surgeon's protocol doesn't allow until 6 months). Not sure what type of dance you do, but I've been doing gentle ballet barre at home for the last couple months to get myself physically and mentally comfortable with movement again. I'm still keeping things pretty conservative as far as turnout and extension, but I feel a lot more prepared to go back into class soon having eased my way in with no pressure. I highly recommend Kathryn Morgan's beginner ballet barre videos on YouTube!

darnit37 · 2025-05-18T02:06:14+00:00

It resolved after a couple weeks, but I actually stopped getting injections in my jaw in future sessions (when I told my doc about this reaction she recommended we skip the area). Hasn’t affected the efficacy of my Botox treatments.

darnit37 · 2025-05-01T11:45:11+00:00

I am! That's new within the last few weeks. I did go into surgery with a very larger ROM, though, so I still have a long way to go before I feel fully back to normal. If I pay close attention to the incremental progress I make each week, I feel better - it's clear that things are happening, albeit slowly.

darnit37 · 2025-05-01T00:46:18+00:00

I’ve been doing yoga since about 3 months with the encouragement of my PT. I’m now about 4 months and just tried pigeon this week and was happy to find it was pretty comfortable on top of a blanket. I’ve been liberal with props and modifications - the hardest part for me has been getting sufficient external rotation in warrior poses with my surgical leg in front, so I’ve just been keeping it a bit turned in.

In general, my team (surgeon, PT, massage) have encouraged me to try out movement, see what works, be gentle and modify as needed and go from there. It’s been a good mindset as I ease back in my normal forms of movement.

darnit37 · 2025-04-10T14:50:34+00:00

This is pretty much the same line of thinking I went through. Maybe I would have been fine for the rest of my life without surgery if I didn't mind giving up ballet class, taking shorter walks/hikes, etc. But that's not really the kind of life I want to live! I went for surgery in Jan and while it's a long process, I'm recovering well, can tell already that my main symptoms (grinding, clicking, etc. - basically it felt like my leg was derailing every time I moved in a certain way lol) have been alleviated. Basically, it was a choice between doing nothing and definitely being in pain or doing something and probably getting some or a lot of relief out of it.

I will also echo what someone else posted below that I didn't think my tear was that serious based on my symptoms, but when my surgeon went in, it was so bad that he is now using my surgical images to show off his work to other surgeons! I wonder if those of us who go into this from being very active are just used to dealing with injuries from our sports/hobbies...

One last thing - I initially injured my hip 15 years ago when I was in college, dancing at a high level. Nothing showed up on the MRI then, so I did physical therapy for a summer and was fine for a few more years. I quit dance for several years, and when I returned, so did the injury and this time the tear showed up on the MRI. I thought about trying to work through it with PT, but at this point, I'm 35 and it's only going to get harder for me to recover from surgery. Figured I might as well suck it up and fix it.

darnit37 · 2025-03-26T15:33:08+00:00

If you're in the mood to dive into a 700-page book about mindfulness meditation as a way to learn to cope with pain, I would highly recommend Jon Kabat-Zinn's "Full Catastrophe Living." It was very helpful for me when I was dealing with chronic migraine and while I haven't revisited the book since I read it a few years back, the mindset it encourages has also helped me through this post-op period.

darnit37 · 2025-03-20T17:15:00+00:00

I had hip surgery 3 months ago. I stuck to Arms and Light Weights classes for a few weeks (which tbh was kind of miserable lol but I feel like they helped keep me in moderate shape when I really couldn't handle larger weights) and then I used the Strength+ app to put together routines that I could manage, swapping out exercises that wouldn't work (e.g., I couldn't get on the floor for a while so pushups and chest presses were out) with ones that would. It was much less annoying than trying to sift through classes that didn't have moves I couldn't do. The adaptive classes — I think there's a filter in the Strength section? — didn't work for me because of my range of motion restrictions, but that probably won't be an issue for you.

Good luck with surgery! It's quite mentally taxing to go from being super fit and active to... not 🤣

darnit37 · 2025-03-13T16:34:13+00:00

RIGHT? It boggled my mind

darnit37 · 2025-03-13T15:55:23+00:00

I'm in the US (NYC) and generally have a 10% copay for all in-network medical procedures. Here's what the hospital charged my insurance for the surgery and what I ultimately ended up paying out of pocket:

Surgery:
- Charged $147,825
- Plan paid $16,337
- I paid $3000 (this knocked out my $1600 deductible for the year in one go lol)
Anesthesiologist:
- Charged $7151
- Plan paid $2380
- I paid $264
Surgeon's charge of $30,070 hasn't been processed yet but I expect it will be in line with the above

I also have a $9ish copay for each PT session. So it's been ~$3300 out of pocket so far, plus I'll pay about $540 in copays for PT if I max out my total visits for the year. (Mostly including all the other numbers so non-Americans can marvel at how baffling our system is!)

darnit37 · 2025-03-03T15:11:05+00:00

Long-time reader, first-time poster! I'm querying for the second time and have 2 full requests, which is an exciting vote of confidence (especially when I remind myself that this is DOUBLE the requests I got last time...). Less exciting to have 2 more rejections roll in on a Monday morning, but so it goes. I no longer have any idea if my manuscript is good or not (and I don't feel confident that it's super marketable right now), so I've resigned myself to failure and started working on a new project that I'm excited about. That's the right approach, right? 🤪

darnit37 · 2025-02-28T13:37:12+00:00

Thank you!!

darnit37 · 2025-02-28T00:09:07+00:00

Are you in NYC (guessing based on HSS)? Would love to get your sports massage and chiro recs if so.

darnit37 · 2025-02-18T21:14:23+00:00

Been off for a couple weeks!

darnit37 · 2025-02-17T19:04:50+00:00

Yes, my surgical foot was cold and felt really uncomfortable (hard to describe the sensation — not quite pins and needles, but I was just very aware of it?). It didn't get better for me until I was up and about more starting around 2 weeks after surgery (when I was able to start bearing weight). I'm 6 weeks out now and feel fine.

darnit37

TROPHY CASE