Yesterday was one of those days where you take a deep breath to finally relax….then ….WHAM!....here comes a feeling of terror!!
It happened just as I was placing my finished manuscript into the mailbox. It's on it's way to the outside professional reader. For the last several weeks, as you know, I’ve been writing and rewriting, so much so, that my husband asked, “Who are you?” when I came down from my writing loft one night.
My head has been down. I’ve been taking all of the great feedback I’ve gotten and moved pieces around, added, taken away until yesterday, at precisely 4:50 pm, I gave up and rushed the manuscript to the post office.
Right after I dropped it in, I heaved a sigh of relief. Then panic hit! I just sent off “my baby” to be kicked around again by yet another reader! What was I thinking? I stood there, jerking at the mailbox opening, sticking my arm down the mail chute, slapping my hand back and forth, back and forth until Mary, (the postal worker) shouted from clear across the room, “Ginger, stop that!”
“Mary, I need my manuscript back!”
“No, Ginger, let her go!” (I’d been keeping her up to speed on my adventure.)
“I can’t! She’s not ready! Maybe I missed something!
“She’s fine. Let her go!”
“I want her to be the best she can be, it’s baby, my manuscript!”
She walked to the mail bin and jerked it from the sack. She turned it over and over in her hands. As Roger, the postmaster walked by, she handed it to him. “Too late, Ginger, the baby’s gone.”
I sluffed out to the car and slid in.
“She wasn’t ready,” I thought. “She just wasn’t ready.”
I banged my head, over and over on the steering wheel until it looked like I had painted a red streak across the top of my face.
A minute later, Mary was banging on the window, my package in her hand.
“I couldn’t do it,” she said. “Maybe this baby does still needs you.”
I grabbed the package and hugged it to my chest, twisting back and forth with joy!
I looked back at Mary as she walked away. She had signs painted all over her back that read,
Missed opportunity
New challenge
Offer letter
Published author
Quitter
Good book
“Mary!” I yelled, flying from the car and running to catch her. She turned.
“I’m done. She’s ready to go on her own.”
It’s true. You create something. You give it your best, but if you don’t let it go, you’ll never know if what you did was good enough. So friends, write it, then let it go, getting on to some new venture that will show…..you are a writer! The baby will be fine.
Here’s an upcoming contest from Hope Clark!
2010 ELIZABETH SIMPSON SMITH SHORT STORY CONTEST
http://www.charlottewritersclub.org/Elizabeth%20Simpson%20Smith%20Contest.htm
ENTRY FEE $15 (members), $20 (non-members)
Deadline May 28, 2010. Send 3 copies of an original, unpublished
story between 1,500-4,000 words (one per author)
First Prize Award: $500.
Second Prize Award: $200.
Third Prize Award: $100.
That's a wonderful dramatization of exactly how I felt. I didn't want to let it go for fear that it wasn't ready, wasn't good enough. I felt sick after I mailed it. But it's done, it's gone, and I know people (one person in particular) who's been polishing and polishing and polishing his memoir for three years--still hasn't sent it out. I know it's not going to be easy, none of the outside readers make it easy on the authors, but at least we had the guts to do it. Nothing ventured...nothing gained. I liked your post Miss G.
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