10 Rules

There are things in life that are so ingrained in our routine that they never merit any conscious thought. Until they fail.

Such was the case last week when, in the middle of the night, I stepped into the bathroom to find a puddle on the floor. The toilet was leaking, but at 2 a.m., I had no interest in trying to figure out where it was coming from. I reached down, turned off the water supply, threw a few towels on the floor, and went to use the other bathroom.

The next morning, I began my diagnostics. At first, I thought it was the wax ring that seals the pedestal to the plumbing. Those go bad, and I'd replaced this one about five years ago. It was reasonable to suspect it was time for a replacement. But as I did some more testing, I found the leak was not coming from under the toilet, thankfully. It was coming from the tank. I'll spare you the details, but it was several days of replacing gaskets, using shims, and applying no small amount of silicone sealant before I had the leak fixed.

My point being that some things grab your attention and just can't be ignored.

Just as I had finished repairing the toilet and was satisfied it wasn't going to spray all over the place like an I Love Lucy episode, I was hit by the freight train of a head cold. I'm usually able to avoid these, but this one got past my defenses. And it Laid Me Out. I spent the next couple of days in bed with a fever, a pile of used handkerchiefs, and empty bottles of OTC narcotics. This cold was playing all of the classics: chills, fever, stuffy head, sore throat, and a noisy, wet cough.

The only real blessing was that I had finished repairing the toilet before the cold hit. I can't imagine having to try and fix the darn thing while dealing with all of that.

As you can imagine, dear readers, this ate up a lot of the time available to me for book editing.

I think I mentioned in the previous newsletter that I had an initial interview for a position that looked very promising. Last week, I was able to interview again with that company, this time with a VP. My initial reaction after the interview was that it went well. But as time went on, my brain played back the interview, and I became less sure of my performance. Well, those fears were confirmed. Yesterday, I received an email from the company saying that they were passing on my application.

After six months of job hunting, it's a little disheartening. I have a resume and a portfolio that, even just a few years ago, landed me several interviews in a matter of weeks. This is a very strange market.

But the only way through is to go forward. I continue to broaden my net to see what roles I might catch.

Emergency home repairs, illness, and rejection certainly put a dent in my attitude and my production schedule. But darkness is usually defined by the bright edges around it. When you look at an eclipse, it's not the black circle that you notice, it's the bright ring. For me, the bright ring in these last couple of weeks was some positive reviews from my early readers on the book.

As I've said before, putting your art into the world is a real act of vulnerability. So getting positive feedback was a great relief. I still have my own concerns and doubts about the story. However, it seems other people like it. I'm not going to sit here and cry, "Poor, tortured, misunderstood artist." That's not the case. I just have very high standards for my own work. Probably higher than they need to be.

I've started work once again on the edits based on the feedback from my early readers, and with a better outlook on the product I'm creating.

I'm not sure what it is about writers, but for some reason, we feel the urge to put any writing advice we have into a list. I've certainly done it and published that list in this very space.

Since I didn't have time to edit the book this week, I also didn't have time to write an essay. So instead, I'll share with you a couple of my favorite lists from writers.

Bonus: Here are Pixar's 22 rules for emotional manipulation and creating billion-dollar stories.