Don't look and it won't hurt

I finished a new manuscript on Wednesday. Here it is!



Yes, it’s in a laundry basket full of my late grandmother’s parfait glasses, next to a comforter set I bought for the guest room in November, which is piled with all the sweaters and coats and scarves I have worn this week, all of which is shoved against the wall next to a broken cable outlet I’ve been meaning to do something about. The rest of my office looks the same way. That’s because when I am making a push to finish a novel, my house starts to look like an episode of Hoarders. Happily, now that I am finished writing, I have the leisure to clean.

As soon as I read the book!

Thursday and Friday I had too much work to do for my “real” job. I couldn’t find a single spare minute to take a look at this pet project I’ve been working on between other manuscripts and proposals for more than a year. This morning I’m up at 5 a.m., raring to go...and yet I hesitate. I have a feeling this manuscript is fabulous, but I’m afraid I’m remembering it wrong, and when I read it I’ll be disappointed.

Worse, maybe it really IS fabulous (imho) and, heart-breakingly, it won’t sell to an editor. I’ve been down that road before (and posted about it on Jeri Smith-Ready’s blog here). As long as it stays in that laundry basket, it is still a best-selling novel. IN MY MIND.

On the other hand, if I never read it, I will never get around to cleaning, and if I never clean, I really will turn into an episode of Hoarders, and you will find me ten years from now buried under tons of manuscripts and Fritos bags and the body of my dead cat.



I guess I’d better read it.