Orbits

I microwave water because there's no teapot in my house. It does the job. I currently only have black tea since I already have flavors to add. I'm fuzzy on how we acquired a dozen bottles of flavored syrups, but I figured there was no need to buy flavored tea until I used these bottles first.

While stirring my hot tea after adding honey and French vanilla syrup, an idea hit me: I live in an orbit. The rotation of the tea inspired the idea. Everything goes in a circle or orbit. The moon orbits the Earth. The Earth orbits the sun. The sun might orbit a black hole in the center of the galaxy. Scientists are still debating that one. Even our universe is moving, perhaps in an orbit.

I'm sitting in front of my laptop, like I have for the past forty-nine weeks. My arms are resting on my thirty-year-old desk as I type this sentence. I've been here before, and I'll be here next week and the week after that. I will write a story a week for a year, even if I don't have one for this week. I am not going to let a little thing like not having a story keep me from my goal.

Sunday through Saturday is an orbit. It's inevitable. But for some reason, when Friday ends, I act like I have all the time in the world to get another story. Then I'm surprised when Thursday gets here, and I have not even started. "Oh, crap! Tomorrow is Friday!"

I admire the writers who post a story on day one. I have no idea how they do it. Even on the few occasions when I finish a story before Friday, I continue to rewrite and edit until the deadline. I don't know if that's a sign of insecurity or something to be proud about.

I began this on Friday, January 31, at 7:30 p.m. Central Standard Time. This week, I started and deleted three stories, totaling over fifteen hundred words. But I had to. I was boring myself and thought too highly of you to do the same.

Beginning and ending a story is an orbit. I struggle the most with the beginning. I study the prompts and start to think. Unfortunately, I'm more like the scarecrow before he got his brain. "Pardon me. That way is a very nice way. It's pleasant down that way, too. Of course, people do go both ways!"

I've typed four hundred and nine words, not counting the ones I just wrote. I call this part of my story The Middle - between four hundred and six hundred words. And if you would like any more ingenious writing labels, I've labeled the first four hundred, The Beginning, and the last four hundred, "Holy crap! I need four hundred more words."

I should call the middle the bog because I have a tendency to bog down at this point more than any other. Like the three before this one, many of my stories never make it out. It drains me to lose a story in the bog. It feels like such a waste. Two to three hours gone, never to be seen again. It makes restarting that much harder. I wish I had the confidence of the man in black going through the Fire Swamp. "Rodents of unusual size? I don't think they exist."

The encouraging thing about this paragraph is I can see the light. I'm almost out of the bog. Only twenty-something words till I reach "Holy crap! I need four hundred more words!" At this point in my story, I stretch and say, "Well, you've gone too far to quit now. So, stuff some more straw in and keep typing."

Getting my hopes up is an orbit. My hopes are the highest after I hit submit and pay five dollars. I believe this week could be the week my story gets the judges' attention. I'm not even hoping for a win. I'd be ecstatic if I were shortlisted. Truthfully, any validation would be incredible.

My hope either wanes or waxes by Monday based on the Reedsy community's response.

(May I take a moment here to thank everyone who has ever given me a positive comment or thumbs up. It means a bunch and encourages me to continue when my dark side tempts me to quit. Okay, now back to the story.)

By Wednesday, I've given up hope, or I'm thinking of who I'll thank for helping me win this award.

Then Friday hits without an email from Isabella Peralta. My shoulders stoop. Doubts fill my mind. I wonder if I'll ever be good enough. I throw my pity party with balloons and party hats. After that, I shake it off and study the new prompts, "After all, tomorrow is another day."

I just took a deep sigh because this is where I ask, "How do I end this thing?" With less than three hundred words till hitting the minimum one thousand, It dawns on me that three hundred isn't that much. It seemed much bigger back in the bog. At this point, the "Holy crap!" lowers from a scream to a whisper. I know I'll make it. That doesn't mean I think it'll be good, just that it will be finished.

Orbits can be boring. It's always the same old path: I find a prompt, procrastinate, write, submit, hope for recognition, and find a prompt, procrastinate, write, and so forth. The routine drives me crazy sometimes.

Orbits are predictable. I always have something to do. Before writing, I had nothing to do when I was at home. I looked forward to work because I had something to do. You know something is wrong when you prefer to go to work than take a day off.

Orbits give life. Without the Earth's orbit around the sun and the moon's orbit around the Earth, we could not live. If the planet aimlessly floated about the solar system, we'd either drift too close to the sun and burn up or too far and freeze.

I'm thankful that my life is in orbit. It keeps the writer in me from freezing or getting too hot-headed.