Oscillation

The inevitable ups and downs of creative work

I sent off my manuscript to the publisher last Friday for my book on intentional decision making which will be published next spring.

I have this distinct memory of the doctor’s voice after I gave birth to my daughter, literally the moment after she came into the world. I remember everything getting a little hazy and as I lost consciousness I heard my doctor say calmly “She’s going into shock. Let’s put the head of the bed down.”

I’m thinking about aftermaths, right after a thing is completed. A book. A birth. A pitch. It’s often a time when I get sick, when my body says, ok, we’ve hung on this long without rest, but it stops here. Now you will rest. We will make you rest. Bring on the phlegm.

You’d think from reading LinkedIn and other resolutely positive self-helpish business texts, that we all should be leaping from peak to peak. No slow starts, sticky middles, sloughs of despond. But that’s not how real life works – not for me, my friends, or the executives that I coach.

Oscillation is the reality. And if we can’t praise it, let’s at least acknowledge it. The goal is not to avoid the waves, it is to surf more adroitly. And we can’t learn to surf if we pretend the waves aren’t there, or stick to paddle boarding on flat lakes, hemmed in by shores.

Here are the oscillations I’ve experienced working on my book, which reflect similar oscillations I’ve experienced in other work projects. This is not meant to be instructive. That would be like instructing someone on how to have the stomach flu. It’s meant to be evocative, to get you to understand your own personal oscillations.

First, the soar. I start something with energy, hope, new office supplies. I think of ways this could succeed, the other opportunities it might bring. My mind makes connections, I feel positive and smart, and I see the value of what I am bringing into the world.

Until I don’t. This is the first fall. I’m intensely aware of the labor of what I am doing. Why am I writing a book while I have a coaching business to run? How will I balance all of this? What do I need to reconfigure? This is so much work!

Then there is the groove. I get into a routine. In my case, a client left, and I decided not to take on anymore new clients until the book was done. I developed a rhythm, and I started to make progress.

Until the worries descended. What if this doesn’t make money? What if I can’t replace the business that left when I start looking for new clients in the fall when I finish the manuscript? What if no one buys the book? These practical concerns pretend to be real, but aren’t connected to what is happening in the moment. They are always future oriented and not anything I can address. That’s what makes them sting. It’s like walking into a bee’s nest, and being swarmed.

Then a swell of confidence. I’d come up with an interesting chapter, or even a couple of pages, and feel recommitted to the work. I’d get help, like the expert who happily agreed to read my manuscript and offer feedback, with an unexpected generosity. I just asked her to read a chapter, and she said she’d read the whole thing. Being connected to others can help with this swell, which is important for those of us who labor primarily in solitude.

Then the crash. The doubt. Why am I doing this? This sucks. What was I thinking? This one usually happens in the middle. It can last a while. I’ve done enough work to be committed to a certain approach, and then the doubts crash in. This oscillation is personal, private, and close to the bone. I hear every naysayer from my past, I become convinced I am a talent free zone.

Luckily, because this is not my first rodeo, I know that the crash is also illusory. I try to stay close to what I do well, take a break to write something else, like this substack, or even remember past wins. Friends can help here. I have other friends who are writers, who know this space, who have their own version of the crash, and they nod sagely at me, like two people sharing notes about their respective experiences with a terrible skin rash. That sucks, dude.

I oscillated though these phases. Then I was done. After a heavy push to make my deadline, I finished. I hit send. Then there was the aftermath. The physical and emotional exhaustion with a few brief glimmers of pleasure that I was done. I printed out a few copies of the manuscript for review. When I went to Staples to pick them up I shyly told the woman behind the counter that I wrote a book. “I see that,” she said kindly, since she had just printed and bound what was quite clearly a book. One of her co-workers came over to the counter. She turned to him seriously and said, "She wrote a book!” “Wow,” he said. I looked to see if they were mocking me and realized they were just nice, that they felt connected to the process somehow and it made them happy. That was a glimmer.

And now I wait. I’ve worked with this content with clients for years, so I feel like the concepts are tested. But the actual book hasn’t been read by anyone yet. My partner has a printed manuscript. We’ll be reading next to each other at night. I’ll be trying to concentrate on my novel. Then he’ll pick up his pen and make a note in the margin of my book. And I’m off again. Was that a good note or a bad note? How long is it going to take him to read the book? Apparently forever, that’s the current wave I’m riding.

What are your oscillations? How well do you surf those waves? It helps me to remember that we all have them, even if people rarely talk about them in their bright and shiny social media posts.