It’s Sunday morning and I’m already overwhelmed for the day.
The morning is crisp and bright and sunny and just begging for me to get out there and start working on outside projects.
Yesterday I reclaimed a corner of the garden from the weeds that seem to think they own the place. This was after a trip to the car wash with Mr. Wonderful (you remember him from my old posts- he’s still around) even though it was nice enough he could wash his own car, went to the garden center where I bought more stuff to plant, because SPRING!!!
After planting a whole flat of pansies- because again, SPRING, the garden wrestling, trying to figure out why my tractor won’t turn over-diesel engines perplex me, and finally listening to my aging back to come inside, I sat down to write.
I have two projects open right now. My WIP and my first full manuscript (don’t worry, my now almost famous Crappy Fantasy Novel and Lucifer’s Child still linger in the shadows). When I am stuck on a point in the shiny new thing, I go back to do yet another revision on the first one.
Finding the weak spots in my past work is helping me not make the same mistakes in the new one (that, and an amazing bunch of critique partners).
Because lately, I’ve been feeling frustrated and depressed about my writing.
Imposter syndrome, the general morass that is modern publishing, the waiting, the rejection, the abject fear of failure- all of these things grabbed me by my metaphorical throat and choked the joy out of what I love to do- write and create stories.
I created mood boards, I made a mock-up cover for my Possibilities manuscript, I tweaked the title, I revamped my women’s fiction page on this website, and then berated myself for not writing.
But like getting my garden ready for spring- a spring that has teased us, then frozen and soaked us- I have to do the work to get the results.
So, I am going back to that first manuscript and doing more work- digging out weeds and adding the things that I think are missing. It was a good story. An enjoyable one, but I haven’t been able to find it a home.
I am still querying my second women’s fiction manuscript, writing the third, but the revision of the first is giving me a new perspective. I’m pulling the weeds of my own pride and looking at it with new eyes and finding the weaknesses. In turn, I am making new mistakes with my WIP, but I am also more aware of what that story needs.
Hope is a fragile thing. I have it every year when the winter fades. But as Emily Dickinson so beautifully wrote:
“Hope is the thing with feathers- that perches on the soul-“
I will hold to the hope that I will be published one day- either by taking the terrifying plunge of self-publishing (which is behind the revision) or by being persistent enough to find an agent, and lucky enough to find a publisher.
Like my garden, there’s:
The back breaking work, because I have to be honest, leaning over to pull weeds or sitting in my desk chair for hours seem to have the same effect. There’s a whole lot of cracking and moaning.
The waiting. This is the hardest phase for me. I am NOT a patient person by nature. Waiting for query responses or watching the dirt for the tiniest seedling, then wondering if it will be a rejection or a weed? TORTURE.
The hope, that my work will be good enough to provide me with yummy vegetables or validation for my writing.
These steps might be in search of the reward, but in reality, they are the reward in itself. Why else would I do it? Because:
Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
Nancie Abuhaidar 