If you have written several manuscripts — or read a bunch of books by the same author — you might notice everyone seems to have a bunch of recurring interests, or themes — different subjects, ideas, concepts that different people are constantly drawn to. So far, my themes seem to be, in no particular order: mirrors, love triangles, missing parents, coming of age while stepping out of a shadow of one’s parent, and thin lines between reality and fantasy. What are yours, or your favorite authors’?
But while you’re thinking about the answer to that, think about this: do you have themes that seem to recur in your life as well?
Here is mine, lately, and the one I am seriously getting tired of: a fork in the road.
Like Robert Frost said in one of his most famous poems of all time:
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth…”
Well, I am Robert Frost right now, standing there and looking, except, my road doesn’t seem to fork into two, it seems to diverge into a zillion pathways. This is happening in both writing and life: I face a choice between the security of a full-time job and the scary freedom of full-time writing, a choice between journalism, teaching, full-time, part-time, no-time. And then, to add to that, there are the choices between writing projects. After I finished my first manuscript, I plunged into the second one — a historical fantasy that I’ve been working on for five years now. Re-envisioning it. Over. And over. And over again. My friends love it. My agent thinks it has potential. My darling daughter dreams of it. My long-suffering husband is sick of it.
I love it, too. And I am sick of it. I can’t finish it. I can’t stop trying to finish it. I can’t stop going back to the fork in the road.
I declare, I am done with it. I shall put it away and start on the new story — one of so many that are calling, calling, waiting patiently in the wings. My agent says, work on what you love. But what if I love everything!
I try to start the story, but go nowhere with it. I go back to the Difficult Manuscript. I try again. I fail again.
Have you ever been there?
Forcing yourself to make a choice, then starting to run down one path, where you stumble or fall into a ditch, or even look around at the landscape and frown at the ominous signs of danger and mayhem and uncertainty, and the next thing ypu know you are running back to try another path, only to see the same thing happen.
Or is it just me? 🙂
I don’t lack the will, nor the energy. My friends and family think I have this great talent and the drive to accomplish just about anything. (Thanks guys!)
And maybe they are right. I can stay up late, wake up early. Once I have a plan, a clear vision of where I am going, little can stand in my way. Finishing my first novel was proof. It got hard — so very hard sometimes. I tried taking teaching courses while working on it. I nursed a baby, and my young son just got diagnosed with asthma at that time. I was tired and cranky, though sometimes wild, too, and once in a while, deliciously lost in my writing and deliriously happy. It took six years, give or take. Still, I did it! I finished it, and revised it, and revised it again.
They say once you finish a first manuscript, the second should be easy. Why then do I find myself, running around in circles, lately?
I try and I try to get out of this — I try both too hard, and not hard enough. But I don’t know how to try better.
“Just do it!” a wonderful friend said to me yesterday — one who is a big fan of the Second Novel. “Just finish it!”
I stared at her — a prolific published writer and a mother, with a full-time job, who can produce a manuscript in one to two months. “That’s what I want, too!” I wanted to yell back at her. (Of course I didn’t). “Please don’t think I’m lazy!” I didn’t yell. “I can do butt-in-the-chair! I can put in the hours! And, I think I can even write. But I can’t seem to be able to finish that story!”
I feel like, if only I could get out, take a path and stay on it, no one could stop me, I couldn’t possibly fail. But once the path is taken, I kick myself for making the wrong choice. I feel paralyzed, just standing and standing there like a dolt, trying to guess what awaits me, as though life comes with guarantees.
I will persevere. I have to, somehow. I will find a way. Right?
All I need to do is choose. And stay on the chosen path with conviction. How hard can it be, really?
Katiaesque 
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