So defying all the odds, I have heard back from an editor at one of the lit mags I submitted to a couple of weeks ago. (No, I'm not going to say who because I don't want to jinx it.) (I mostly know that is silly but I'm still paranoid enough to fall for it.) The piece was not accepted as written - the editor discussed some general issues with it and basically kicked it back to give me a shot at shaping it up a bit more. The biggest issue was the beginning. This was not a surprise to me at all because the beginning of this piece has bugged me for a long time. Like since I wrote it. Like around FIVE years now.

Honestly if I could fix the damn thing I would have done it by now.

This is one of those writerly moments where you feel compelled to say writing is hard work. I know this not really true - writing itself is not hard. Loading airplanes at 40 below is hard. Fueling with a wind chill of 110 below is hard. Dealing with toxic chemicals at a waste water treatment plant (like my father did for 35 years) is hard. Driving an oil truck in Rhode Island for more than 50 years (like my grandfather) is hard.

You get the idea.

And yet writing has to be one of the most frustrating things in the world. I helped the guys load when it was freezing (actually when it was beyond freezing) so we could get the planes out of there faster. It was painful and difficult but you knew what you had to do and you picked up the boxes and you shoved them into the planes and you did it and it was done. There wasn't an enormous amount of brain power involved. (This is not to say that loading cargo is easy - there are a lot of ways to screw up filling an airplane. But once you knew how to do it, you could do it well pretty much every single time.) (My contribution was really easy because all I did was hand the boxes to the guys in the plane anyway - I didn't have to figure out anything.)

But writing is frustrating. You look at something again and again and again and you keep trying to make it work and every single damn thing you do makes it work a little bit better - maybe - but not work completely. And the rest of it is good, the rest of it is solid, but you have to fix these bits that just don't work or it really doesn't matter about the rest of it. And I know this. I've known this about this certain piece for years.

And still the damn thing just stares back from the computer screen, mocking my attempts to make it truly sing.

Writing is so frustrating.

I will get this piece squared away in the next couple of days because I have to. I have probably been lazy about it for the past year or so, convincing myself it was good enough when really it wasn't. I set it to the side before its time, shuffled it under other needier, and quite frankly easier, writing projects. This thing has been silently kicking my ass forever and I just kept hoping it would heal itself.

You would so think I'd know better than this.

So that's why I've been quiet the past couple of days, I'm trying to get this thing done. I know how lucky I am to hear back from an interested editor this quick and I also know the piece could benefit from the added attention and I also know that maybe - really - this has been one of the reasons why the complete manuscript hasn't found a home. But still. This writing stuff is really bloody frustrating, isn't it?

[Post pic is not of me but lord - do I feel her pain.]