Green chili stew simmering on the stove. Fire in the soft adobe kiva fireplace. The mountain looks closer today. The sky is grayer. The task of a rewrite of a large book looms formidably as I think of things to do to avoid it. But soon I will crawl into the deep chair by the fire and begin to read and think. Writing the first draft was a different job. It was not such a good idea to think, but rather to allow the characters to do and act and speak as they would. And they did. But now, it is a task of structuring and tightening.
I have been sitting on this now for 10 years. It was the end of November of 1998 when I finished. Then the holidays, then Tom died, then my father died, then the estate needed my constant attention, then moving, then grandchildren, then then then then.......But it won't do itself and it won't go away. So this is my work for the winter in Santa Fe.
The coffee mug I left at home says, "What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?" And I recently read this: "Fail, try again, fail better."
What is so frightening about failing? For one thing, as long as I do not really say, this is it--the final product--then it can remain a wonderful potential, a perfect treasure. Not so, when it is complete. Then it is there for anyone to see in all its imperfectness. But what is so bad about that?
Where do I get the idea that I even should know how to write a book? A full length novel, at that? Am I so arrogant? Never having done it, still I should have a perfect one?
So my morning prayer today is for the humility to think that it is okay to do my best. Just do it. Just put it out there. Let it go. And if necessary, fail better next time.
Now to the green chair by the fire.
