Against Optimism
I keep telling people that I wrote six novels before A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend. I’m not sure that’s true. I think I wrote four full novels and, two years I participated in NaNoWriMo, two half-novels that didn’t have enough energy behind them to be really worth finishing. In any case, my computer crashed, I didn’t back up well, and most of what I’ve written has been consigned to the little “trash” folder in the sky. But anyway.
People are a little bit surprised, sometimes, that I was willing to write four-and-two-halves bad novels and keep on going. What did it mean? Dedication, perseverance, optimism?
Not optimism. The people who know me will confirm that I can panic over absolutely anything, that I usually have to be pulled back from the worst-case-scenario running through my head. I stopped believing I would ever be published years before I wrote Love Story.
But I didn’t stop writing.
I mistrust doing anything with my hopes pinned on what’s going to happen in the future, or what other people are going to think of me. I trust what I can see in front of me right now: it’s an idea that’s worth digging up. It’s a story that’s worth telling. It’s sitting in front of the computer and making myself work the problem instead of watching the Daily Show or playing Bejeweled.
I may not always believe in myself. But I believe in the work in front of me.
