I hate limbo.

Not the stupid, drunken dance where you see how low you can go. Publishing limbo. Waiting for submissions and trying to find some strength within myself to keep pushing forward with my work on books I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to sell.

For me, motivation is tough concept to understand. When I teach the chapter on motivation and emotion in psychology, I have to dig down deep to offer good examples and explanations because I don’t always understand. It’s not that I don’t “get” motivation; it’s that I don’t “get” lack of it. How can I explain a Type B personality, someone who takes the easiest approach to a problem and never feels stress? The concept is as foreign to me as speaking Mandarin Chinese.

I wake up every morning with an ache in the pit of my stomach because I know I won’t be able to get everything done I want to do that day. I want to dazzle my students with brilliant lectures that contain the perfect analogies. Yet I also want to have the time to sit down and get whatever story is swirling in my head down on paper. Even worse, I want to pull up all my other books and give them one last polish. Unfortunately, Mother Earth only gives me twenty-four hours to accomplish all this. I suppose I could always give up sleep. No wonder Type A personalities have short life spans. We don’t burn the candle on both ends. We pitch the entire thing in the fire.

I’m in limbo on the books I’ve sold. I turned Murphy’s Law edits around in five days. Now I wait. I wait to see if the editor is pleased with my efforts. I wait for the release date to be set. I wait to see if it will sell.

I’m also in limbo for the books I’m tyring to sell. I wait to see if Maureen can do her magic with my stories. God love her, she believes in me, and I’m humbled by that.

I need to refer back to the mantra I decided to cling to in 2009 — Publishing is a marathon not a sprint.

But I still hate limbo.