Monday, July 06, 2009

On Leave from Maternity Leave

I reached a critical point this weekend where my head exploded. I bought Ricki Lake's new book about birth (Your Best Birth, which every single woman should read. I mean it! Make educated choices, people!) and finished the whole thing in about 5 hours and realized I had nothing else to do. Nothing. I had cleaned everything, cooked everything, played as much Catan as I could stand, and didn't even feel like watching tennis.

Then I couldn't sleep, so I checked my email at 4am. There were messages in there from editors, asking me to write things. I felt the familiar rush of excitement, only magnified. I mean, here was work without me having to hunt for it. They were throwing it at me! I didn't have to agonize over a story pitch. The assignments were right there for me to take. So I took 'em! And it felt so good!

I prefaced my acceptances by saying I might cut out of the world to deliver a baby and be late on my fact checking, but if that was alright with them I would LOOOOOoovvvveeeeee to work on their story ideas and, in fact, could probably turn in drafts by Tuesday. And even though it was a holiday weekend, they wrote back to say, "Hey! Congratulations! No problem! I'll send a contract."

I got so excited that I sent out a pitch I'd been working on as well. So now I have three stories to write, and each time I interview a source I feel like I've done heroin. Not that I've ever really done heroin, but I imagine this drugged out sense of ecstasy, where your whole body just feels really satisfied and energized and good, is what it feels like to do heroin.

I don't even need chocolate, I'm so happy right now. Talk about a good reminder that I've chosen the right career path.

2 comments:

PeaceLoveMath said...

Oh yeah, Ricki Lake was in that "The Business of Being Born" documentary too, right? Did she help produce that, or was she just in part of it?

Katy said...

it was her baby, so to speak. ricki is amazing!