Words Per Mile

(Tragically, not my dog in the photo.)

This weekend I drove 600 miles in four days. Is that a lot? Among people I know, yes. Among the general population, I guess it depends. Definitely saw a lot of creative driving up and down the East Coast, but luckily when it’s a familiar drive and you know what to expect you can avoid the pitfalls that are unique to each state.

I’ve decided that two lanes is the worst number of lanes for a road. You have many of the problems of a one-lane road (accidents being a Huge Deal, a small number of bad drivers can ruin your day, trucks) but without some of the benefits (generous breakdown lanes, a feeling of futility and the zen-ness of accepting your fate). You also have many of the problems of wider roads (people desperately and dangerously changing lanes, high variability in speed between lanes) without some of the major benefits (room to pass people, space to circumvent an accident). This part of my thought process has nothing to do with writing; I just hate two lane roads. If you’ve done enough driving in Connecticut, you can probably guess which two lane road is my least favorite. I’ll give you a hint: stop signs on on-ramps.

Some people get surprised that I’m willing to do this much driving this often. It’s long, sure, but my family is on the other end; six hours are going to pass either way, I can either see them at the end of it or not. And yeah, driving is risky, but we all do so much driving in our daily lives that doing a little extra one weekend feels like such a drop in the pond. And for those reasons, I finally submitted the manuscript I started in 2011 to some agents. The time will go by and I will have submitted my manuscript or not–fussing over the details of something I know is good at this point is the same as sitting around for a couple hours deciding if I want to go for the drive. And I get rejected all the time–I work in healthcare with elderly patients who half the time just don’t want my services–so I might as well get rejected on the path to my biggest goal. And now I should be hearing back from agents any time between next week(!!) and January.

Fingers crossed that I don’t have to spend $900 to repair my laptop like I just did with my car, though. Knock on wood.