Deja Vu

~Diana Scharf Hunt

This morning I sat for my son’s pre-school orientation.

It was the fifth time I’d seen the show.

Last year was the fourth, which is really where this post gets started.

Mia had started Kindergarten a week earlier, and I’d just written her little cupcake of a chapter book.  The only thing I’d laid down besides, was a short story, which I’ve no problem admitting was a spectacular embarrassment to the tongue.

As I sat, trying to remember how things were worded differently the year before, my mind moved to my mental manuscript, and then began to tinker.  

I removed the notebook and pen I happened to have in my lap (a staple now, but a  whim that day) and started to scribble the prologue to what would, later that evening, become the first few pages of my novel.

I’ve been thinking about the novel a lot.  Mostly because that’s what I do when I’m in no way touching it.

It’s true, I’m embarrassed to admit, but I haven’t worked on it in…. oh… about seven weeks.

Since I started Writer Dad, that’s the direction my fingers have danced.

I was in the middle of the third draft, and just kind of left it middling.  I’m tempted to put it aside, so I can write something breezy, which the novel is anything but.  

There are parts that are really good, and parts that are really bad.  

The problem is, I can only sporadically tell them apart.

The book has too many ideas in too little space, and I don’t quite know how to bend them around. 

It was my first attempt at fiction, and I’ve learned a lot since.  

There’s a marvelous gem, but it’s deep in the mine, and I’m unsure if I’m ready to dig.

Sitting in the orientation, realizing that a year had passed since I first put pen to paper for potential, it was clear that I cannot let that world born inside my head, rotate too far from its natural orbit. 

There’s something else too; a steroid to these feelings.

Rita’s getting published.  

That’s BIG time.

There’s been a lot of discussion about her encounter with the publisher.  

I’ll say this.

Imagine we’re holding a bag of five dollar popcorn, watching that scene in the restaurant play out on the screen.  The appropriate music swells the background, and everything’s twinkling and pretty.  

When Rita said, “Oh, I almost forgot to give you this,” then slips the woman her manuscript, we’d feel like applauding.

She handed her words to the right person.  But if they’d been lousy, Rita never would’ve had a deal. 

The lesson here isn’t that publishers can be hornswaggled.  

It’s that when the right person sees the right manuscript, a deal is made.

Which means it’s time for me to get to work.

Writer Dad

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