I'M WEARING MY SWIM CAP RIGHT NOW

By Barbara Poelle

Stop me if I said this already, but I’ve been swimming in the mornings before work at this giant aquatics center in Harlem and I love it. I mean love it. Despite the fact that I have to get up at ass o'clock in the morning, and then hang my suit out of my office window to dry, I am having a passionate affair with swimming.  I talk about it all the time and throw it into conversations that it has no place in, like, “Hey Abby Zidle, can’t wait to read Where Hope Begins, because I feel like it can sometimes also begin at the 75 yard mark of a 100 freestyle.”  Or “Hey Danielle Perez, big kudos to you on the shout out in EW for F.U. Penguin, because much like the penguin, I too am a form of aquatic marine life.” I know. It’s weird, but I cannot help it. But it’s not like it’s a big surprise when I throw it in, though; I smell like a bucket of bleach and my hair looks exactly like Harry Dunne’s from Dumb and Dumber. (Okay, Husband,  I just spent waaaaay too much time trying to find the perfect link or photo to put in here and I couldn’t get it just right, so can you just set aside some time later today and find Jeff Daniels on IMDB or something and then come back and post it in the comments? I just can’t understand the internet beyond the fact that it is a system of tubes…)

Anyway, so I am in the water every morning barking with glee like an elephant seal and then yesterday I came in to the center to a sign saying the pool will be closed for cleaning and renovations… until October 1^st.

Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

You know what this feels like? It feels like when you read an amazing first book in a series and then you have to WAIT before reading the next one and in the meantime you still eat as many calories as you did when reading the first book and you wear the first book under your clothes just to feel some sort of comfort but people keep saying to you, “Does it smell like chemicals in here?” and you scream at them, “I AM WAITING AS PATIENTLY AS I CAN, ALRIGHT?” That’s what it is like.

I am not all up with the patience. When they were handing out “patience” I was in line for an extra scoop of good lookin’ Husband. (Has he done the IMDB thing yet? You have to kind of grease the wheels.) Yeah, patience and I, we never really got to know each other that well, so it is odd that I have become of her disciples, preaching her word near and far to my clients from the moment we start our journey together.

See the thing is, it’s a hurry up and wait kind of game out here- once you have actually found an agent that is only the first stroke on a 100 yard butterfly. (Which I so totally NAILED last Friday.)  And sometimes, that first manuscript isn’t the one that lands you that great deal. I don’t want anyone to get nervous that one book is the only shot you have. Okay, sometimes, if you write non-fiction about a particular topic that can’t find a home, it might mean that we both need to focus our efforts elsewhere, but if your first manuscript doesn’t sell, it’s not a reaper finger pointing at your entire career. (On this same topic, if your manuscript comes back with monster edits, it doesn’t mean your current version blows chunks- none of us would spend any time on a dud.)  So I guess what I am saying as we all plunge into the crisp business of fall, let’s keep reminding ourselves that Plume wasn’t built in a day.

Oops, gotta jam, my goggles are starting to fog up and it’s getting hard to see the screen.

Comments

[husband]

Babe, I'll be your Lloyd Christmas anyday.

[Ben Sobieck]

I don't think it's so much patience as remaining calm. Don't freak out. Be cool and collected. Patience will come after the heartbeat is steady.

Here's my own aquatic recreation analogy. I took a scuba class for a half-semester in college and ran out of air one session. The instructor forgot to fill the tank up before I entered the pool. I also forgot to check the air before I got in the pool. 'Twas a deep dip into terror. I sunk right to 20 feet without so much as two breaths. In that case, freaking out would've been a death sentence.

Kind of like writing. Being anything other than cool-headed is no good. The editors I've worked with would say hot-headed, easily-disturbed writers are the worst.

[twitter.com/ahream]

OMG, me too! I took up swimming in May, and now I'm this deranged woman with dry skin, bad hair and really bada-- shoulder muscles. Crack. Crack in the water. It's the only explanation.

[Abby Zidle]

Thanks for the shout-out! And now I want to go swimming.

[RL]

Wow, this was SO timely a post! Nice!

Man, I swim much like a three legged cat wearing a bilge pump for a necklace. Really need to work on my "sputter sputter thrash and choke" stroke, I guess.