Navigating a High Tide of Publishing and Personal Responsibility

“How’s the book doing?” a friend of mine asked. “And when’s the next one coming out?”

She didn’t know it, but my friend had touched a sensitive nerve with her two seemingly benign questions.

Earlier in the year, I’d set a deadline for myself. By a particular date, I’d have researched at least a handful of places to pitch articles promoting my debut novel, Rewrite the Stars, and my next manuscript would be in the hands of two dear and trusted readers. Fulfilling those two goals would allow me to keep my debut present (a must in the publishing world) and to submit my second manuscript to the publisher. 

But there I was, two days before my self-imposed deadline, a distasteful answer perched on my lips: “I’m not sure how the book is doing—I don’t ask or look at the reports—and well, the next will be delayed. I’ve been a little busy.”

“Busy” is a term to both love and despise. Like most people, I’ve been busy all my life, and saying “I’m busy” means next to nothing. Plus, being busy is relative: Being busy in college meant something completely different from being busy as a working person. Being busy with identical twin toddlers at home and a part-time teaching gig didn’t look the same after my son arrived (which meant more laundry and stress, less sleep and dedicated time with the twins). By the time the fourth child came on board, I’d learned a few important tricks to help with being busy:

1. Set priorities or the busyness can be overwhelming.
2. Breathe in and out, deeply, several times, while tackling the list of priorities.
3. Stay calm and envision the busyness going out like the tide, knowing it will eventually recede (though another round will follow).

Those tactics worked quite well as the years passed. They helped me through batches of homemade cookies for the PTA, an extra class in my teaching schedule, my husband’s hernia operation, a volunteer shift for a school field trip, an unexpected editing project, my own laparoscopic surgery for an ovarian cyst, and so on. 

And then my parents, namely my father, overtook that busyness, maintaining a high-tide status. Over the course of five weeks, he visited the emergency room four times for various issues including high blood sugar, excruciating hip pain, and possible heart attack. And during those five weeks (with the help of my sister, husband, and children), I came to the rescue.

A quick shuffling of priorities placed daily visits to the hospital in slot number one. Chats with physicians and nursing staff about medications and diagnoses (of which there is none) came next, followed by conversations with the social worker about potential palliative care and rehabilitation services. Each day, I packed Dad a lunch and snacks in the event his blood sugar dipped too low during my visit. I made my own lunch, too, and dragged my computer with me so I could work while he slept.

My mostly self-sufficient teenagers and wholly self-sufficient husband fell well below these tasks for Dad on the priority list, with me coming in dead last. Sure, I delivered the few editing projects I’d taken on by their deadlines, and I logged miles on my treadmill (the risk of a downward spiral is too great should I skip the running). But promoting Rewrite the Stars? Revising my next manuscript? Well, those would have to wait until next month. Or maybe the month after or the month after that . . .

Dad is in rehab now, but there’s no sign that the tide will go out anytime soon. I head over twice a day to see him because he feels closed in by his four walls, and he’s having trouble adapting to his new reality: that walking unassisted will likely never happen again, and a wheelchair might be the safest way for him to move about. Each day, information still needs to be managed: What’s his pain level? How is therapy going? When was his last bowel movement? When will he return to his assisted-living facility? 

It’s not that I don’t have the time to fit these items on the priority list—he is family, after all—or that I even mind having to move my own items off the list for the time being. The issue is this: Like toddlers and teenagers, my dad requires a large chunk of my mental energy, leaving very little for me. That mental energy—the weight of the responsibility of caring for him—is the most difficult for me to adjust to. My personal balance is skewed, and it feels the way the ocean does when it presses against my chest, causing a hitch in my breath, a slight panic to rise within.

How you adjust to challenges and changes says a lot about who you are and what you’re made of. Each day when I visit Dad, I think about how good I have it—supportive family and friends, overall good health, the luxury of working part-time so I can be there for Dad—and I think about Rewrite the Stars, the sales reports, and those words waiting for me on the page. I think about the tried-and-true tricks I’ve depended on for years and apply them once again. 

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Twitter: @cmconsolino

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Bio: Christina Consolino is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in multiple online and print outlets. Her debut novel, Rewrite the Stars, was named one of ten finalists for the Ohio Writers’ Association Great Novel Contest 2020, and she is the co-author of Historic Photos of University of Michigan. She serves as senior editor at the online journal Literary Mama, freelance edits both fiction and nonfiction, and teaches writing classes at Word’s Worth Writing Center. Christina lives in Kettering, Ohio, with her family and pets.

REWRITE THE STARS

“…a touching story about love with all the odds against it.” –Ann Garvin, USA Today bestselling author of I Like You Just Fine When You’re Not Around

Mom-of-three Sadie Rollins-Lancaster struggles with a crumbling marriage she had hoped to salvage. Though her husband, Theo, initiated the divorce, he’s now having a change of heart that’s difficult to reconcile as he fights against PTSD demons within. When a chance encounter with a stranger resurrects emotions in Sadie she never expected to feel again, her world is turned upside down. Will Sadie find the courage to shape her own future? Will Theo resolve his internal struggles and win Sadie back?

Rewrite the Stars is an honest, moving portrayal of life and love that reminds us how much of our happiness lies within our own grasp. If you like heartwarming stories about love, loss, and redemption, then you’ll love Christina Consolino’s debut novel.

BUY HERE

 

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