brain soup

This week has felt like soup. It's humid today but my brain's been humid all week, Monday the end of a three-day weekend, which is always a special kind of brain-soup with a toddler, then four days of a weird combination of continuing to give myself a break after turning in my book + catching up on all the life stuff (dr's appointments, DMV stuff) I've been ignoring for the last two months while finishing my book.

It just occurred to me that my brain is also soup because the routine I've had for the last year is just gone. Poof! But don't worry—in a few weeks my editor will send me back notes, and I'll have a whole bunch more book writing to do.

But maybe, a stupid voice whispers in my head, he won't have very many notes at all?

I shouldn't even wish for that! I keep trying to remind myself, to convince myself, that notes don't mean I did anything wrong, don't mean I'm not a good writer. Hell, I work as an editor! I give great writers notes and suggestions all the time! And yet I still want to get an A in first-draft book-writing. And, let's be honest, to not have to do that much more work!

But my editor is smart and great, and—I remind myself, I convince myself—his feedback will help me make the book better than I could make it on my own. Gonna tattoo that to the inside of my eyelids so I see it every time I blink while I wait. And gonna try to wring the soup from my brain without the steadiness of a routine—and a clear, singular goal—to keep me going from day to day. Next week is the baby's last week of "school," then a week off, and then "camp." ("Camp" is just "school" with more sunscreen and an hour earlier pickup.) They say toddlers thrive on routine, need routine to keep them steady, but even the most consistent routine doesn't stop him from crying when it's time to stop playing and go take a bath, time to get dressed and go to school instead of play—even though he likes the bath, and loves school, he knows that there's an alternative, which is to lie on the playroom floor and roll a matchbox car back and forth, back and forth. I want there to be a lesson in there—routines won't save me, my brain wants to roll a car back and forth—but also I'm not a toddler. I'm hoping several layers of to-do lists in a notebook will do the trick.