Mothers’ Day Service

Welcome to Mothers’ Day

I am writing this after a few days full of making craft activities for all ages, to be used in today’s service. Finally I have five baskets set up, each with five different activities for five tables of 8 or so people. 

This puts my first task this week - completing the final edits to my manuscript - into perspective. These edits are adjustments following the reader’s remarks. The reader is the one from the publisher. The trouble is that altering one thing creates an effect on everything that follows.

I suspect I’m not the only writer who turns around after submitting the very final edit to find that the house has become a chaotic mess, self-care has gone out of the window so that hair has grown wildly and fingernails clatter even on electronic screens. Curtains are hanging off rails where curtain hooks are broken, Zooms have been missed and phone call messages left unanswered. The washing pile has morphed into a mountain.  Meanwhile, there are all those other very important deadlines, like Mothers’ Day, for which much material needs to be prepared. Then there’s the fallout with the pets becoming needy and demanding - I keep telling them that they are not being fair - I didn’t actually leave them, and I made sure someone fed them.

Thus the sense of triumph at finally submitting the writing in a form that is edited to the nth degree and completely empty of plot holes has been delayed, while life in our household is restored to a less chaotic level and most other deadlines are met.

I am exhausted. I was already before I created baskets of craft activities. Editing is a massive, complicated task but oddly enjoyable. I don’t mind being asked ‘whatever happened to …’ and realising that the superfluous paragraph I recently deleted was essential. And I’m glad to no longer have a character whose name seems to be Diane, Diana or Dianne depending on the page that is being read. These are valid points. But it was rather disconcerting to read about everything else that was wrong with the book in the readers’ view. I nearly gave up reading the report before the end which would have been a shame because the final remarks were very positive and suggested the publisher proceeded with a contract. Which they did.

So after the family service this Mothering Sunday I shall try to settle back, and enjoy being a mother. I hope.

Or perhaps I’ll cut my husband’s hair and help him sort out his fingernails! 

Annie Try writes contemporary novels as Annie Try. Her W-i-P is a novel for young adults and follows a 16 year-old as she struggles to meet challenges with her health, work, and relationships.