Daily Archives: March 14, 2007

Writer on the Verge

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By Kate Carlisle

That’s me, on the verge. But really…on the verge of what? Stardom? Publication? A nervous breakdown??

Hey, and what is a verge, anyway? Like some kind of cliff, I think. The edge. The brink. The limit. Land’s end. Ah, it might be fun to just relax and jump.

But wait! It might hurt! Maybe I need to be talked off the ledge. Help!

Yeah, good luck with that. I’m here to tell you, you can try begging for help off the ledge, but your friends, the real friends, the people who nag you and worry for you and laugh and talk and share your pain are yelling “jump!”

What’s up with that?

It’s scary here on the verge! You just want to step away, maybe go take a nap. But they won’t let you! No, they want you to enter another contest, query another agent, stop screwing around and get serious about your work.

And if you try to sneak away? Ha, they band together and refuse to let you pass. They operate in packs, they form tag teams, they nudge you closer to the verge, whisper sweet words of encouragement, coax and coo and smile and cajole you into believing that you’ll be happier if you jump. They insist the plunge itself only lasts a few seconds and you’ll suddenly find yourself in a new and better place. A lovely place that finds you closer to a contest win, the end of your book, your dream agent, your first sale, the bestseller list.

And then? Well, then you’re on the verge of something else! Yeah, somewhere along the road you realize that with every step you take, you find yourself at the edge of another cliff.

So what do you do? Take a nap? No, those people, those friends, they won’t let you! Really, they are a bunch of nags! Nope, there’s only one thing you can do when you find yourself on the verge.

Jump!

Kate Carlisle is a Golden Heart winner and American Title finalist who writes romance, mystery and Young Adult fiction.