Damaged Calm

On the cusp of my final evaluation at school for the year, this one an announced peer observation that will count on my "final score" because I was still recovering from my hip surgery when the opt out paperwork needed to be submitted. I'm not worried about it, but I am. But this isn't what I wanted to blog about. I wanted to blog about something even more important than that. Deals.

Okay, relax, take a breath, I didn't get a deal...yet, but as I am sometimes wont to do, I was reading PW this morning and made the mistake of clicking on the Deals link and opening a list of deals that were made in the last week. One of the deals sounded very similar to the book my agent is shopping to editors right now. This naturally damaged my calm slightly and as time passed (the students in my first "block" class are working on a project, so I'm not directly teaching at this point), my brain took the little bit of information and began snowballing. It started slow and small but now, about an hour and a half later, it's grown to the size of that boulder in Raiders of the Lost Ark and it pounding the sides of my fragile psyche.

It's interesting how this happens. I'm a "stuck in your own head" kind of guy. Once a thought takes hold, it's very, very hard to let it go, though, when I let it go, it's gone and I don't dwell...it just takes a while to get it out. For now, it's pounding and distracting me when I should be on my game, getting ready for my eval and preparing for a big writing weekend as I hammer out this novella idea that I've been working on. Instead, my brain is obsessing over why this person's book is somehow better than mine. And this bothers me. It sometimes leads me into dark places...dark places that make me ask questions that make me very uncomfortable. Now, I don't begrudge that person success. Honestly, I don't, but it doesn't stop these question from popping up.

Writers are fragile creatures sometimes and usually we are most injured by the slightest of slights and can endure the most vicious evisceration.  I am no different and right now my calm is damaged over this and it shouldn't be. I should celebrate this person's/people's success, not me injured, upset or harmed by it. It could be another step being built for me to get my deal for all I know.

Really, in the grand scheme of things, this isn't a big deal. I know, in my heart of hearts, that this is going to happen for me, it's just a matter of when and with whom. This industry is so subjective. All I need is the patience I preach and faith in my ability.

Then again, it might be time for some thrilling heroics.