Premeditating Writer

For the last six years, my husband and I have made ourselves a promise to usher in the New Year in a comedy club, laughing. This year we decided to change things a bit and begin the year singing along with our favorite Jazz singer at a restaurant in Kent, Connecticut.

We drive from our apartment in Manhattan to the country home in Massachusetts with stars in our eyes and empty stomachs, anticipating a huge meal later. We get to the house at about 7:30 PM. I have one hour to get ready for a 9:30 reservation, which is almost an hour from our house. We drive dark windy roads...

My nerves are shot by the time we reach our destination.

We get seated at the furthest corner of the crowded bar, by the door...thirteen degrees outside, cold air rushing in each time the door opens...bodies pressed against our table. My husband and I make a quick decision and we leave. 

It is now 9:45. Tired and hungry, we drive the same dark, windy road back to our town. Nothing in the house to eat, we’re on a quest to find a restaurant or even a pizza place in a town where everything shuts down at 10:00 o’clock. Sharp. But for some reason we neglected to remember that. Still, we keep our good spirits up and eventually we end up at a liquor store seven minutes before closing. We stock up on crackers and cheese and salami and cookies, a dietary consumption that goes entirely against everything I believe I should be putting in my body. I choose not to be choosy.

We end up back home, in front of the TV, eating junk food and watching the ball drop.

It’s not my style to make New Year’s resolutions, but I’m changing the  pattern this one time.

And that is…

Next year we’ll be walking the three blocks to our favorite comedy club in Manhattan – and begin the year laughing.

Happy New Year

2015

2014 is almost over, marking a time for a new beginning. No. I’m not talking about resolutions. I find them too easy to break. And setting goals can be overwhelming. We all have things that we want to accomplish in our lives — getting into the better shape, making more money, writing a best-selling book, etc.

For me it’s a time to discard all the pollution from the last 12 months that is overcrowding my life. Like throwing out all the stuff I don’t need or use anymore. It frees up needed space for all the things I’ll be able to throw away at the end of next year. Like murdering bad habits, like shaking off the negatives; like uncluttering my inbox of all the important emails I was going to read one day. As of today, I’m ending toxic relationships to free myself up for potential mistakes in the future. And maybe—just maybe—today, I will throw away some the shoes and boots I've amassed over the last twenty years. They don’t fit me anymore anyway.

Now, this is not much to ask for, right?

Voices of Doubt

Authors’ stories of rejection are plastered all over the place, and I’m one of them.

This is my story!

With the completion of my very first manuscript, I felt euphoria. What a wonderful accomplishment. I sent the manuscript to an editor. He corrected the grammar, made some small changes and with the end of our transaction came his glorious reviews. I was on a high. I poured over tutorials to help me write a great query and synopsis. The same editor helped me polish it.

There was a new spring to my gait. I was on my way to becoming famous. This was going to be the Great American Novel. What a high.

I was prepared; manuscript completed, query and synopsis shining, literary agents were just ready to admire them. I sent out the first few queries. Visions of my name imprinted on the pages of history twinkled on the horizon.

Like scavenging birds of prey drawn to carcasses, the rejections began coming. And kept coming. Have I sent out that many queries? And every one a whack to the ego.

Then came voices of doubt. They showered me with ridicule; I was not good enough. I will never be good enough. What was I thinking? This little voices inside haunted me, telling me that And the more I read of other writers' accomplishments, the worse I felt.

After the steady stream of rejections, you’d think I’d have learned my lesson. I set out to edit my previously completed ‘masterpiece’ and went on to complete another manuscript, and now I’m on my third one. My heart still palpitates with excitement and I’m still stunningly optimistic.

So, to the voices of doubt in my head, I tell: I’ll forever be hopeful. I won’t give up. Not ever. I love writing too much to quit. I’ve made headway on my third novel, applying the skills I’ve gained from the hard trek of editing. Several short stories are in queue and I would keep on keeping on.