The Nature of the Work

At about eleven AM—having start­ed at six AM—I went through my new man­u­script for the Xth time. I decid­ed it was done. Was it tru­ly fin­ished? I had been work­ing on this, the first draft, for six months. No, not fin­ished, but fin­ished enough that my edi­tor needs to eval­u­ate it. The only one who has heard (not read) the book is my wife. While she is a ter­rif­ic critic—and indeed some of her sug­ges­tions have been incor­po­rat­ed into the text—she is my wife, not my editor.

So, I must send it in.

Am I ful­ly con­fi­dent the book will be accept­ed? Well, actu­al­ly, no. For this writer, any­way, there is no such thing as a sure thing. Most of the book—I think—is good –but I would not bet my life on it. I’m anx­ious then, and will be for at least a month—or longer—until I get a response.

But I do have the sat­is­fac­tion that I have reached this point.

Then, at about 2 pm—same day—I drove to the post office—in this rur­al area, a back and forth dri­ve of twenty-miles–to pick up my mail.

In the mail was an express pack­age from anoth­er edi­tor, with notes for anoth­er new book. The book was sub­mit­ted about six months ago, in fact, just as I start­ed work­ing on the book men­tioned above.

The notes—at first glance—look complex.

I’ll need to start work­ing tomor­row. Not all bad. It will keep me from think­ing about the just sub­mit­ted book.

Those of you out there who hunger for the life of a writer, just know the work nev­er ends. Nev­er. As for you pro­fes­sion­als out there who are kind enough to read these notes, you know exact­ly where­of I speak.

S.J. Perelman—a 20^th cen­tu­ry fun­ny man, was once asked about his life as a writer. “Love the job,” he said. “Hate the paperwork.”