Journal

Ten Years

Thing Is…

I had a whole long post written about the same thing, but in far more detail, a sort of retrospective of the last decade or so, trying to explain why I feel kind of happy now. It was over 2500 words long and I’m pretty sure you don’t want to read that.

So instead, you get this much shorter post. And I’m really only dropping by to share my joy.

On Monday, about noon, I made my first submission, which you already know. I tried to treat it as a normal thing, as part of the job, so that I wouldn’t make too much out of it and could start thinking focussing on the next thing as soon as possible. Didn’t work. In the evening, I told myself, Hey, I made a submission, and I got very happy while I was on the bus, probably with a ridiculous smile on my face that ensured that no one took the seat beside mine.

See, it’s not a book deal. I’m not getting published (yet). I don’t have any reason to believe I have any significant chance at publication either. It’s just the act of making that first submission. It’s the thing I’ve wanted to do for, say, the last ten years. Project after project, all embarrasssing (which is what I tried to talk about in the original long post), and it was really not looking good. To finally figure out what I was doing wrong and to put out a reasonably okay draft of The River in three months last year should probably have told me that I had made improvement that I could be happy about, but it didn’t, and it was only until that submission that I managed to feel that way.

It’s a nice feeling, really, especially to realise what I’ve managed to do and learn, even if it’s nothing great and it took ten years.  So I just wanted to share my joy with you here, because that’s what they say you should share. Now, let’s celebrate for twenty minutes.

Okay, time’s up. Time to get back to work and get started on the next ten years.

© 2009 a modest odyssey.