books in progress, a writer in un-progress

It's only paper, I told myself.  Or (another tactic), One thing at a time.  

But today it seemed too much—three manuscripts in their piles—on the floor, on the chair, on the glass pane.  Three manuscripts, waiting.  The You Are My Only galleys, to be read one final, change-it-now-or-never time. The one hundred pages of memoir proposal.  The adult novel I've been giving myself deliberate distance from, now returned to me after a marvelously close reading.  Three utterly separate worlds in one small space requiring an enhanced version of me.  Three different voices.  Three different things I'd come to say.  Words the only tool I have.  Words insistent and inadequate.

I pulled weeds instead (there are plenty of those to go around).  I took a walk.

I was, I'll admit this to you, afraid.

Tomorrow is another day.