Since I retired 10 years ago I have managed to become afflicted with Scarlett O’Hara Syndrome. While I’d like to tell you that refers to her 18 inch waist, it doesn’t. It refers to the quote, “Tomorrow is another day.” Read that, I now live totally in my right brain and all of the years of living with my Stephen Covey organizational methods that made me a highly successful person have been traded for a red dress and I’ve gone to the ball!
Meeting self imposed deadlines has become a thing of the past. It took me 2 years to paint my kitchen and dining area. First I had to find the right color, decide how I was going to organize colors and decorating, then I had to motivate myself to go buy the paint and architectural details, then there was the motivation to get up and decide “today is the day” rather than “tomorrow is another day.” Finally, I had to gather the ladder, the cans of paint, the brushes, the edgers, the paint tape, and the wet and dry paper towels for when I start painting the floor or myself. I’ve had no problem going from someone who had every minute of the day organized and working a 60 hour week to sending the left/organizational side of my brain on permanent vacation.
I have been researching and mentally organizing and processing a YA book for about 20 years now. I have tons of research, but keep running into stone walls. Each time I hit a wall, I sit back with frustration and say, “Tomorrow is another day.” In an attempt to kick start this project again, I attended a Women’s History Month program in Washington tracing African American women from the Civil War to Civil Rights. Fascinating workshop. Got me motivated.
I also registered for a workshop on Writing Children’s Books which requires me to produce at least one chapter. I created the annotated chapter outline. I then did a first draft (which was actually about 53 drafts) of Chapter 1. Parts are good, parts are very good, parts have no right to be on paper. “Tomorrow is another day.” Well, I’m running out of tomorrows (deadline for submission is June 1st) and I feel like I am throwing darts at a dartboard while blindfolded to find an approach to the story that is natural and flowing, not painful and contrived. There is a correct framework for this story, all I need to do is to find it, then rewrite Chapter 1 by June 1st.
While this post (blast of frustration) will never be my best work… I am a good writer. That being said, writing a book for publication is a far different thing than my professional writing or writing the results of research, writing a report, or writing a blog, or writing a letter, or writing a note on a card.
Writing a book requires just the right narrator, just the right concept, just the right dialect in dialogue, just the right pacing in unfolding the story, enough information yet not too much information, enough description so that the reader feels like they are there involving all of their senses, and do all of this while stimulating a reader to keep turning the page…
Before Miss Scarlett lets loose with another “Tomorrow is another day” and I lose all chance of meeting my deadline, could some of my writer friends out there offer some suggestions to slow down this overactive brain and tell it to shut up so that I can write…
I’d love to hear your thoughts…
Writing into the Light... 