Spring struck Brooklyn yesterday, and New Yorkers began to don their blouses and skirts in gayest colors of yellow and purple and green. Yet today, it’s dreary and cold again, and the rain drizzles from the sky, forgetting that the sun should be shining freely. I’m snug up at a cafe that, like most cafe’s in New York, makes barely palateable coffee, but that doesn’t matter because the lights are bright and my seat is warm.

I’ve written six pages so far today. Yesterday, I wrote twelve. My goal for the next two weeks is from 7 to 10 a day, and I’ll be done. I think I’m keeping a fair pace.

Thursday, while at work, HarperCollins offered me a full time position.

I declined.

Strange, because I’d been enjoying my work there so much. It’s far more difficult to say “no” when you also want to say “yes”. I’ve owned my own publishing company publishing other people’s works before, so the passion for publishing in and of itself is deeply rooted. I still read every article and bit of news I stumble across that relates to the business, be it the sales and marketing end of publishing or the physical: papers rolling across the press, neat letters in linotype, the scent of process black and warmed paper.

Every corner you turn, you’re faced with decisions. Some of them are no brainers, easy to choose which way. But there are times you’re torn between the better of two good paths. You’d be happy with either. But that’s when you have to look inside yourself and ask, “What is it I’m here for?” And the answer?

I thought about it for weeks, but the final decision was an instant’s flash of insight. I’m here to create. To write. To draw. To make. For two months, I unceasingly worked an extra five hours a day on my first midgrade novel while I was working another seven to nine at my day job, and I still only averaged 10 pages a week. For ever three pages I wrote, there’d be only one I’d keep.

Yesterday, my first week off in two months, I worked five hours, without interruption, wrote nineteen pages, and kept twelve. That’s over what I normally write in a week!

So, I’m impatient. I write more and better when I’m not interrupted every hour. I make leaps in intuition I wouldn’t make otherwise. Is there really any argument?

Even so, it wasn’t an easy decision to make. I worked in publishing again for two months, and I genuinely loved my job, the people I worked with, and the many, many things I learned working for the second largest publisher in the US. I would have been perfectly content working there for the rest of my life, climbing up the ladder of a whole new set of ambitions, but I chose not to for love of something … not necessarily better … but more fulfilling to my soul. It’s the difference between chocolate ganache cake and a good beef stew. Creating is both nourishing and fulfilling to me, even while the alternative is just as tempting.

So I’m back at it, be it drawing, writing, or printing. I have two weeks to finish my midgrade novel rewrite, and after that, no more. I will not rewrite this again. I can edit, but counting so far, I’ve written this book about six times over so far. That’s HALF A MILLION words. Give or take a few. Even I’m astounded by that number, and then I laugh a little. Thankfully, with the first too long, this last incarnation is about 2/3rds the original size. And that’s for the better!