If for Not

With full speed ahead I am continuing to write my book. Last week the proposal went off to two agents and today I registered the copyright. I have been working feverishly to stay on schedule dedicating hours each day to writing and organizing the book. Sometimes I get so lost in the project that time slips away and so do all the other things that exist in my life. Conversations and time spent with friends and family is selfishly guarded by me. I feel the crunch of time and the clock ticking away. I’m very good at setting goals and reaching them ahead of schedule. I learned this early in life as a young single mother putting myself through college. I always had to give myself room in case something happened at the last minute that needed my attention; like a sick child or a child’s school project. I’m happiest when I have a goal and am under the pressure to make a deadline. I’m selfish and greedy with my time. I can spend hours alone self absorbed. But what if all this work is for “not”? What if after it is all written and done nothing happens? This is the question I ask myself when I take the time to come up from the keyboard and breathe.


Then the phone rings and my daughter calls. I stop and take the time to listen. She asks me about the truth. What does it mean to be truthful? In a literal sense it means not to lie but the truth cannot be applied so easily as truth like everything else is relative. The one deciding factor is the truth should always be lived with two thoughts in mind; do no harm and always do what brings the greatest good for the many. Sometimes the sacrifice of one is best to preserve the whole.

I return to my writing. The truth looks me in the face. My book may not become a best seller but it will get published. The publishing arm is in place. It may or may not make any money but a few copies will be sold. When it is finished I will feel that sweet moment of accomplishment and then it will float away. Something new will take its place. May-be book number two? Whatever it is – the truth is- I love what I’m doing, I’m doing no harm and whatever the turnout when you’re happy you bring the greatest good to the many.

Doctor Lynn