I’m not editing a book.
A few months ago, a friend asked me if I would edit a book written by the adult child of a famous deceased person. The parent is a name that at least some of you would instantly recognize.
I said yes. This was probably a mistake because I had not read the book before I agreed to edit it. The writer was also peculiar in that they were very concerned about the possibility that I or somebody else might exploit them based on their parent’s name. It was a weird interaction.
As I started editing the book, I had far less time to work on it than I anticipated. In the summer of 2023, my wife worked almost the entire summer; I think she took off perhaps a week or so. My daughter also worked several hours a week at a clothing store.
Different this time
In the summer of ’24, my wife took off for eight weeks, which was good and proper. But we had lots of projects to do in the house that needed to happen because of some insurance issue that is more in the weeds than I need to get into here. My daughter was working fewer hours than she hoped at the new store she was working at. Moreover, we went on vacation, a week at Chautauqua and a week in DC.
So, the time I thought I had available to work on this project did not exist. Still, it became very difficult for me because I was fussy enough to want to fulfill the obligations.
After talking to a couple of people, I contacted the person who asked me to edit the book, and they said OK, we don’t want you to go crazy. Then I had to talk to the author. I sent them an e-mail, which they obviously didn’t see. So I texted – one does not just call – and they wrote back: “Book seems like a curse. No one finished it. Crazy.” Did I mention I was not the first to take on the book? The notes from a previous editor were still in my version.
Reboot
But this episode got me thinking about the other things I’m doing in my life, the things that are working for me, what I really want to do, and what I don’t.
I want to work on genealogy, which I have not spent enough time on. My sister Leslie had talked to both our third cousin on our mother’s side and my father’s first cousin and did a lot of work when she was in Binghamton in July, filling in some holes in our genealogy. The problem is that I haven’t even had time to enter some of the records that I have or the 1000 cues that ancestry.com has provided me.
I want to sing in the church choir. Our choir will sing the Bach Magnificat on Friday, December 6th, at 6:00 PM at First Presbyterian Church in Albany. You should come.
My wife and I are going to see plays and movies.
So, other things have to go off the table. I’ll just have to, in the words of Nancy Reagan, just say no. It won’t be easy at times, but my sanity requires it.