Monday, April 20, 2009

The Now

Editing a full-length manuscript is like having a bolt of hemmed fabric unwound around the block. At some point you realize you should tweak the hem at a certain point, but that point is, like, on the other side of the block. And it's by that house with the barky dog and you're just so fed up with that dog that you'd rather not walk all the way over there to change that little bit.

I'm kind of overwhelmed at the moment. I don't remember being this overwhelmed with Divine Discontent, but that may be because 1.) DD didn't have a deadline, and 2.) I procrastinated for quite a while before digging into DD.

There's an outstanding family conversation about who's genetically responsible for the procrastination tendencies, and so far no one's been willing to incriminate, whoops, I mean, "suggest," a parent. But I digress.

I had these really pretty ideas about how I would painstakingly go through the manuscript and make all sorts of changes. But you know what? I've been staring at this thing for nine months straight. I can't help but think of the character of E from The Incredibles - "I never look back, darling, it distracts from the now."

While I certainly wouldn't ignore the things to be tweaked, the Now is calling, and it looks like fun. Inspired by my friend Michelle, I'm planning on spending May challenging myself to shake things up and do things differently. For me, that will translate into trying new restaurants, new recipes, new routines, new crafts AND a new book.

Looking forward to that, and some new blogging material. According to the powers that be, true bloggers aren't supposed to post less than twice a week. Twice a week? Unless you want my laundry stats, I don't necessarily have much to say twice a week.

Excessive blogging distracts from the Now.

1 comment:

  1. Good for you! Have a bit of fun in May, looking forward to reading about it :) Not sure if I've thanked you for the cookie recipes as yet, but I haven't had a chance for any baking in the last few weeks. In this last few days of April with Joshua having a horrendous cough and a million things to do post-holiday I'm all about surviving the month and less about doing things differently in a big way..

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