In Between Places

I’m between a number of things right now. Halloween and Thanksgiving. Autumn and Winter. Regular life and the holiday season. Revisions and submissions.

Ah, that last one is the kicker. Because while I have plenty of experience with revisions, submissions are a vast, unknown frontier. It’s also a passive process from here on out, with the outcome solidly beyond my control.

In between places are tricky. Like the crevice between the wall and the refrigerator where all sorts of strange, icky things like to gather. Or that problem spot between your molars that binds dental floss and the consumption of popcorn in unholy matrimony. Or the place midway to your destination when the chorus of “Are we there yet?” and “How much longer?” begins in the back seat. Thank goodness for vacuums, Glide and boxes of Everlasting Gobstoppers. Otherwise, a girl could go mad.

It’s easy enough to slide into a panic. The slope is steep, littered with what ifs, what nows, and – the worst of the bunch – what next? But getting that loop stuck in your head is a one-way ticket on the crazy train, and I’m not buying. Not yet, anyway. (Check back with me in a month.)

So what’s a writer to do? (Beyond the obvious consumption of chocolate and wine.)

Three things:

1) Breathe. (Because the alternative will kill you.)
2) Be here, now. (Since yesterday’s gone and tomorrow’s still a dream.)
3) Re-engage the creative process.

Your rough/zero/first/whatever you call it draft is the one thing you can control, and if you’re busy writing, you won’t have time to fret yourself into a coma.

Or so I hope.

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