The Moment to Decide

As many of you know, my personal life these days lies in what I cheerfully describe as "flaming ruins."

Well, maybe this description isn't all that cheerful. 

Throughout all my recent Sturm and Drang, I've managed to stay a faithful and engaged professor for the students in my online class for Hollins University (on the figure of the emerging female writer from Little Women to The Poet X); I've continued to work closely with my three mentees through the fabulous mentorship program in our Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators Rocky MountainsChapter.

It's relatively easy to do things that absolutely have to be done.

What I haven't managed to do is to make any real progress on my chapter book set in an after-school coding camp. There was no day on which I absolutely had to accomplish any writing, so basically I accomplished next to none. It didn't help that I remain paralyzed with dread at the thought of learning anything at all about computer coding, despite having attended numerous coding workshops and read (well, skimmed) numerous coding books. So I am now a teensy bit behind on delivering that manuscript to my editor; it was due April 1, and so far I've drafted three chapters of ten.

Two days ago she sent me a kindly worded email saying that she really did need to know when (if ever?) I would be able to send her the manuscript, as she needed to finalize her list for Fall 2020. 

Basically, I either have to send the manuscript to her sometime on the soon-ish side, or else my book will have to be postponed until 2021.

That feels like an awfully long time from now.

One of my favorite hymns begins, "Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide," with lyrics written in 1845 by poet and abolitionist James Russell Lowell. Well, once to every woman and writer also comes the moment to decide, and this was my mine.

In favor of postponing the book:

1. I have enough stress in my life right now. Do I need to add more?

2. This month I still have my Hollins course to finish up, and the three SCBWI mentorships. And promotional efforts for the first book in this series, Nixie Ness, Cooking Star, pub date June 4. And my friend Rachel's wedding to attend in Minneapolis on May 18. And a sermon to write and deliver for church. And a week-long visit from my grandchildren.

3. Plus, I'd like to do a good job on the book, not a hasty, half-baked one.

In favor of making a heroic effort to write the book RIGHT NOW:

1. 2021 is SO far away.

2. I'm happiest when I'm writing.

3. I'm happiest when I'm busy.

4. I'm happiest when I have something other to do than mourn and mope, grieve and grumble.

5. Any good job on any project has to begin with a hasty, half-baked one if it's going to begin at all.

So I emailed Margaret and said, "Can I make the Fall 2020 list if I get the manuscript to you by June 1?"

And she emailed back, "I think we can make that work."

This morning I got up, not at 5, but at 3:45, so I could be writing by 4. Because EVERY SINGLE MORNING, to every human being and certainly to every writer, comes the moment to decide. The big decision - do it! - has to be followed by many, many smaller decisions of the form: do at least something on this project right now.

I wrote three handwritten pages. They are not very good pages. But all writers know that not-very-good pages have to come first. I now have three more of them than I had two hours ago. 

I have decided!