Beech Tree News Network

A few weeks ago, my daughter, Natalie, gave me an ultimatum.  “When we get back from Europe, I’m giving you one year to the day to have a book ready to go to the publisher.  That’s not too much to ask.  You have friends who have done it, and you can too.”    I know her, she will bug the living daylights out of me for the next year, and the truth is, she needs to.

I haven’t put in the work.  Yes, I have notebooks full of ideas and stories.  I just haven’t completed anything.  In Dickens’ book, DAVID COPPERFIELD, the main character, who himself is a writer, says this, “…many men have worked much harder, and not succeeded half so well; but I never could have done what I have done, with the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one subject at a time, no matter how quickly its successor should come upon its heels…”

The greatest distraction to a good idea is a better idea, and like Dickens says, that successor will come quickly upon its heels.  This concept applies to all walks of life.  It is one of the main sources for incomplete projects of any kind.

I’ve started so many things I haven’t finished, not just writing things.  I’ve become discouraged or bored or I’ve let other things take precedence.  I’m better than I used to be, I think because I’ve developed some frustration tolerance.  The successful have made good use of it.  Thomas Edison said, “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up.  The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”  Edison was focused on one thing, the light bulb.  When he was asked about his failures, he said, “I have not failed 10,000 times—I’ve successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work” (smithsonianmag.com).  

Sometimes, I throw in the towel on a project because I feel like I’m wasting time.  For me, that is one of the worst feelings in the world, to have given myself completely to a project that comes to naught.  I want to feel successful at the things I do.  There are days when I physically work myself into the ground just so I can look around and say, “Look what I accomplished!”  There isn’t much of a sense of accomplishment to completing something on paper to be filed away, I tell myself.

Belva Davis, the first African American woman to become a television reporter on the U.S. West Coast, said, “Don’t be afraid of the space between your dreams and reality.”  That’s a tall order.  The space between two things is a scary thing.  It involves quiet reflection.  That’s a lot harder than the distraction of noisy activity.

I really want to leave something of myself behind.  I feel that way because of all the things I’ve learned from people who have left something of themselves behind.  Books and music and movies have not just entertained me, they have changed me, they have shaped me.  I have laughed at and cried over and learned and understood all kinds of things I wouldn’t have otherwise from the people who were brave enough not to fear the space between their dreams and reality.

I’ve told you before that Garey calls me the mosquito, because I buzz around, irritating the daylights out of people to get them to do what needs to be done, what they should have done in the first place.  I have an ominous feeling that my daughter, Natalie, is going to take up the mosquito mantel and wear me out with it.  You know what?  It will be my due, and maybe, just maybe, I will succeed this time.