Do parents ever get tired of their children?
I don’t mean momentarily tired, like “Go play in your room for a while” tired. I mean tired—like I-never-want-to-see-you-again tired.
That’s what I’m feeling for the work in progress right now.
A troubling emotion…or lack of one. I don’t remember feeling this for the last book, a work I still love. This book is longer. More plotty. Right now, I want it to go away.
I have just finished—well, maybe finished—a section that should be thrilling me. All I feel is tired. I can no longer tell, at this stage, what is good and what is self-indulgent tripe. I can’t find the pace in the story, although I know it’s there. I can’t find the magic in the passages I know I love. It is all distressingly familiar.
Well, of course it is.
I love this book, but it has sat on my shoulders for nearly two years. I have been sitting in the same room with the thing for every minute of my waking life for what feels like forever. It was worn me ragged. Rather than telling myself that it was all a waste of time, rather than throwing my laptop in the trash and myself in after it, I have opted to push my emotions away for a time.
Maybe this is a defense mechanism…a pre-empting of my fear for ending the book and all that the ending represents. Maybe the thing IS self-indulgent tripe, after all, and I’m just being honest with myself. Maybe I am just mentally exhausted.
I don’t know what it is. I barely know what I am, or who.
I know that this grinchiness won’t last. Tomorrow will be different. Maybe tonight will be. Maybe all will be well in five minutes—the most likely scenario. What I need is to finish. To set this work aside and throw myself into the tides of the next one. To go for a long walk on the empty beach of myself. To accidentally bump into the love of my life—me.
Forgive me, children of my heart. Mommy really, truly does love you. Mommy just needs to be quiet for a while.
[UPDATE: Better today. Better. Mommy just needs her coffee….]
7 comments
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December 16, 2011 at 9:50 am
A fan
( LOTS of coffee! )
Sounds like Mommy just needs a 20 minute (or two-week) vacation from the kids.
Lynn, even when you feel bored and exasperated your writing compels. Think about it.
Or better, don’t! Just keep it goin’… Don’t forget that there are future readers waiting…
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December 16, 2011 at 6:16 pm
lynnbiederstadt
Marc…you poet, you kindred soul, you dear one of my heart…thank you for the rightest, best-chosen words at a time I needed them.
xo
-lynnie
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December 16, 2011 at 11:13 am
C.B. Wentworth
I know how you feel. My main character and I are on a little break right now. 😉
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December 16, 2011 at 6:17 pm
lynnbiederstadt
CBW…a long-term split…or a temporary separation? What is the challenge you’re facing?
-lynn
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December 16, 2011 at 12:42 pm
Lynne Dellone
Do what I used to do….call in a babysitter and take off for a bit….
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December 16, 2011 at 6:17 pm
lynnbiederstadt
Lynne, I am SO thinking of it. I think a walk on a beach is in order…although not along Lake Michigan…
-Lynn
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December 18, 2011 at 10:04 am
Alexander M Zoltai
I agree with “A fan”:
“Lynn, even when you feel bored and exasperated your writing compels. “
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