Back to the Lab Again

For a romantic, unrequited love is pleasure and pain!

For a physicist, finding the Theory of Everything may often feel like chasing the wind, but he/she will follow the breeze.

For a writer, an unrevised manuscript feels like a mountain range that must be crossed, on foot…’er by hands, to be a bit more precise, but the writer will embark on the journey because it truly does not feel like “work.”

The quest for completion is necessary.

As hopeless as it seems, or feels, to be incapable of reading the thoughts of the one your heart fancies…

…to be unable to read the mind of God…

…or to have to read your own work and not only see the forest for the trees, but to see the twigs, too?!

It can be disheartening, to say the least.

Patience is key.

Here’s why.

It has been written. (Pun intended)

Seriously though, it has been written!

Some may argue that unrequited love is often the most romantic love and I won’t argue against that point because whether you believe in astrology, or fate, or a good old-fashioned love story, love is written in the stars.

The same place, mind you, where the destiny of the universe (or multi-verse, as a new paradigm for our understanding emerges) has also been written.

The completed manuscript with its syntax errors, misspellings and various punctuation mistakes has remained untouched since you typed, “The End” several months ago.

Yet, it must be re-written.

At least that’s the dilemma I am facing now.

Three completed manuscripts.

One professionally evaluated by a literary agent who made a few suggestions, but otherwise praised my writing style.

Two heartbreaking rejections.

And countless sentences with an unknown number of heartbeats have taunted me like a whisper in the wind with a secret I long to hear. However, if an agent, and subsequently an editor are to ever agree on negotiation terms for my novel, I must first put forth the effort to provide them with a finished product.

I must head back to the lab again, conjure up a potion of creativity…drink it and consort with the literary gods.

I must listen to the voices of writers that echo from the pages of books guiding me along my journey to revise, to rewrite, and to completely edit my manuscript. In order to achieve what so many long to achieve and so few ever do, I have to immerse myself in this process. I must learn from it, and apply the tools and techniques that will help me improve my craft.

I’ve heard about my talent for years but all the talent in the world isn’t enough if I haven’t done everything possible to develop my talent into a skill. Hard work, dedication, focus and a relentless need to fulfill my dream will continue to drive my efforts because this is what it means to be passionate about what you love!

For the lover longing to be in the embrace of your soul mate I recommend you request an audience with God. Ask God to convene a high council of all the gods because someone up there must have made a mistake!

Love, especially the intense, inconvenient, I-can’t-do-without-you, separated by circumstances beyond your control, how-did-this-happen? I’m-lost-without-you, groovy-kind-of-love is usually written in the stars.

State your case and request that: Cupid, Venus, Inanna or Bastet be held accountable for scripting your fate incorrectly in the heavens and make it known that every beat of your heart bruises your soul!

Let ’em know that one more beat may shatter your broken heart, and you may just convince the council to re-write the order of things for an eternal love.

Of course this may cause more chaos for physicists who are already dealing with a plethora of problems, beginning with discord between general relativity and quantum theory.

While their calculations would often bring them to meaningless infinities, the perspective of ten dimensions through the concept known as “superstring theory” allows what was once a lack of harmony to mesh perfectly.

Ah, but that is what is wonderful about the mind of the physicist…having the ability and ambition to find order out of chaos.

Ying-yang…left side, right side of the brain kind of thing. This is where patience is essential. Struggling to remain excited about the story while being open-mindedly critical enough to see the flaws in the way the story has been written.

If the gods are willing to correct the script in the stars and physicists are still able to decipher an eternity of confusion, then a writer should have no problem revising a manuscript. Small potatoes when you look at the big picture because in the end, it is all about perspective.

You do everything you must in order to see it come to fruition, otherwise your life won’t feel complete. Patiently, and with an open-mind, approach the process as an experience you must endure because eventually you will learn what you are meant to learn and you will grow as you are meant to grow.

And when you put down that pen, or close that laptop, as will be the case for the romantic and the lover, you may just find your “happily ever after.”

“It is only possible to live ‘happily-ever-after’ on a day-to-day basis.”
~Margaret Bonnano (Sci-fi writer)