Promise Kept

Monday morning, sunlight on new snow, the fifteen minutes of purging and organizing my office done and the blank screen reminding me I have a blog to write. That blog, this blog, is really not important to anyone, but me. It is only a commitment I made to myself some two years ago.

It’s done its job. I’ve had a purpose, however unimportant, a deadline, though there is only me to answer to. Still, the promises to yourself you keep have a lot to do with how you keep promises to others.

The promise was to write at least one blog a week, Monday preferably. There were other promises, too. And last week I accomplished another one of those promises.

This promise was made just after the lowest time in my illness. I was starting to feel better. At least, I was eating and doing a little more than sleeping or watching TV. I tried to write, but, as I've written about before, strong medicine with its confusion and muddled mind and weakness only left me panicky and depressed. I cried a lot. Maybe, there was anger, too, but the primary emotion was fear.

I tried to crochet—something I always found comfort and peace in—but I couldn’t keep track of the simplest pattern. At the time, I wasn’t at all certain whether this was a permanent thing or a side-affect to the strong drug I was on. There was nothing in the two-page paperwork that came with the drug about it affecting mind, memory, emotion, writing.

As my husband said, it is what it is -the only answer we had. I started doing cross-stitch. Oh, not the counting the little weave of cross-stitch material thing. No, this was the old-fashioned stamped cross-stitching I learned back in grade school. Very repetitious and simple, but therapeutic in some very elemental way.

The pieces I did turned out beautiful. They are charming additions to my décor, but better still, I like seeing them on my walls. Actually, I cherish them…for so many reasons. I accomplished something as I got better, something very tangible. I like that it was words stitched into linen. Somehow, that soothed over the fact I wasn’t writing.

I had the samplers framed and placed where I would see them every day and send up gratitude prayers when I did.

It was right before I hit on the idea of doing the samplers that I’d tucked my most recent novel—Ellie and the Tie-down Man—away in to a storage box. As I’ve written before, I wasn’t sure I would ever open that box again, let alone edit and complete the book. I cried some more and sank into a funk. I felt guilt about the funk, because I was getting better. That was what we had prayed and hoped and worked so hard for. It was why I became obsessive about taking my meds and watching every grain of salt.

I just didn’t think getting better might mean giving up writing. With a lot of help and support from family and friends, I did start writing again and I’m actually very glad everything happened exactly as it did. I came back to the writing slowly but finally, I opened that storage box. When I did, I promised myself I’d get Ellie and the Tie-down Man ready for submission.

I finished edited the book last week, polished the first three chapters, even more, wrote a synopsis, query letter and sent Ella and the Tie-down Man with all its changes (character name change the most evident) into two contests.

I’m not going to say that winning wouldn’t be a hoot, it would, but me keeping this promise is the main reward. Writing this book from the beginning to now was a journey, with more snake pits than I’ve mentioned to anyone. It has earned itself and I’d love to see this book published but if that never happens, (and that’s the most likely scenario) I’ll always be proud of it.