Find Your Home!

One send-off for a short story, another send-off for myself, back into the murky world of the work in progress

I keep thinking it’s time to reenter the novel and then it’s not time, or it’s time for something else. I am at a point where it would be easier to start from scratch than to go back in — only to be immediately pulled out again. That is making me hesitant, unsure.

I’ve been trying to use this current weird energy for something productive. This week, I revised an old short story and sent it out on submission again. So far, this story has earned 28 rejections and has been “in progress” with three more publications for long enough that I consider them passive rejections. (One of these submissions is older than my kid!) But I love this story and I believe in this story and something regularly pulls me back to this story, so I again brought it out of the drawer and sat with the ending and asked some hard questions and changed a few things. Then I sent it back on its way to six more magazines. Good luck, story! Find your home!

And now — is it time? If I go back into this novel, will I be able to stay in it for a little while? Does it matter?

Next step: read what I have. Remind myself where I left off. Try to interpret the notes I’ve jotted down over the last few hectic months (“Icicle organic glass” “Rich lips” “What is a house?”). Forget about editing and rediscover that dreamy space where new stories come from. Good luck, writer! Find your home!