A Work-in-Progress
Even the meaning of the term progresses
TGIF
For most of my professional life, “work in progress” meant the unfinished book, article, or project I was working on. Some of my WIPs remained in that transitory state for years…some may remain as such for eternity.
Eventually I realized that waiting for the piece to be perfect equated to not being published, so I learned to close my eyes or hold my breath as I hit “send” and, in a blink of an eye, the document disappeared from my email box. In the dinosaur days of publishing, of which I am one of the remaining relics, we put those babies in the mail. Later, I watched my words pass through a fax machine, agonizing as I inevitably noticed typos in the cover letter as it scrolled through the feeder.
The tricky thing for me is that my work and my definition of self are inexorably paired. So critique of my writing became personal. If my writing sucked, what did that say about me? For many years, I avoided calling myself a writer to prevent possible rejec…