When You’re Tired and Disappointed

On a Tuesday in early April, I sat down for a scheduled call with Don, my agent. In the weeks prior to that meeting, I had been prepping how I would break the news to him. This is what I landed on:

Don, I really appreciate all the effort you’ve put into shopping this book for me. I mean that. But considering the feedback we’ve gotten over the past six months, I’m ready to sign the death certificate on this one. Let’s bury it. I think it’s time for me to move on with some other ideas.

So on the day, when his cheerful face popped up on my Zoom screen and he asked, “What are you thinking about your story?”, the above draft is basically what I said to him.

Then, I braced myself for him to take the exit ramp I had offered and give me the “maybe the next book will be the one” pep talk.

Until it didn’t come.

“Maile,” he said, “you can move onto another idea if you want, but I think this story still has life in it. Yes, considering the feedback we’ve gotten, it needs some revision. But I believe in this story.”

Huh?

I felt like I was given a bear hug and a gut punch at the same time.

The bear hug was that he still believed in my story. He didn’t have to. He had dozens of other clients who needed and deserved his time. Yet, he still believed my story deserved his time and effort, too.

Then the gut punch. Because he was right: revisions had to be done. Not to make it more “sellable,” but to make it a better story.

So, what was my response?

Well, I floated high above the earth on the warm and comforting winds of Don’s belief for three whole days. Then, I fell.

Hard.

I belly flopped right into a tumultuous ocean of emotions. For the next 3 weeks, my soul was tossed on waves of despair, hope, inadequacy, and fear until I was heart sick.

“I can’t do this,” I said out loud one day in the Lauffice. “I simply can’t write this revision.”

“But if you don’t, who will?” the other side of me said. It was like a scene with Smeagol and Gollum straight out of The Two Towers. “This story isn’t finished yet. Sure, you wrote ‘The End’ two years ago, but there’s needed changes and unearthed potential here.”

“I’d rather eat glass.”

“You’re being dramatic.”

“Hand me that flower vase and I’ll show you.”

“Maile, you’re tired and you’re disappointed. That doesn’t condemn you to a life of eating beer bottles. But it does mean that you will have to do work you don’t want to do. But remember: you brought this book to life. No one else is equipped to write this book better than you. If you don’t nurture it to it’s full potential, no one else will. It’s up to you. Sit there making empty threats, or put on your big girl pants and make this story what it was meant to be.

And that’s how it’s done friends. Tough love with yourself.

Sometimes The Resistance gets in the way. And sometimes you do. Because life is busy and you’re tired and it’s just a whole lot easier to give up than to dig deep. But you never find the treasure if you aren’t willing to get your hands dirty.

Guess what? I decided to dig deep.

And, lo and behold, I found something. More about that next week.

Until then, keep writing.