Manuscripts

I’m at this point in my writing life – the point where I start using the term “manuscript.”

That doesn’t mean I’m using the term “working writer” but I do have a complete manuscript.  One that real people are reading. People other than my classmates, my partner, my kids, my students.  People who have a career in the publishing field.

You’d think I would feel excited!

And I do, but I also feel nervous.  Most days I feel my manuscript is so underdeveloped I might as well have given them a story written by my eight year old.  I get paralyzed with the fear of being exposed as a horrible writer.  I give in to every horrible thought I ever had about myself, as a writer, as a student, as a person.  It’s pretty horrible.

But then I remember this: when I sent out my manuscript, no one laughed.  No one tore it up and told me to go back where I came from and stop putting words to paper.  And then I remember that even if they did, I would still be putting words down.  here, and in one of my notebooks, and on the sticky notes I can’t seem to stop using.  Asking me to stop writing is a lot like asking me to stop walking.  Yeah, I did it once when I was confined to bed rest, but I didn’t completely stop, and I still walked to the bathroom, and I knew I would start back up again. 

So I go back to writing, and writing when I feel good and, now that I have deadlines for revision, writing when I feel vulnerable.

I may not be Kate DiCamillo, but I can try to write as beautifully as she does.  After all, it’s those moments of getting words down that finally add up to that elusive thing: the manuscript.  

Now, if I could only *sell* it…..