We had lunch today at a pizza place in the city. Shared a pepperoni on cauliflower crust between us, I had wings, and somewhere in there I started telling my wife about the rest of the year.
Not telling her the way I’ve been telling her all year — the running commentary, here’s what I’m working on, here’s what shipped. Actually asking. What do you think matters. What should I be doing right now.
I cannot tell you the last time we sat down and did that on purpose.
She had answers ready, which tells you she knows me and knows how I work. She’s a planner, and she had good questions before she had any advice.
Pivot to the Christmas book I’m revising. Finish the rewrite and get it out by the first of October so the promotion lands in the Christmas season instead of after it. That one’s been sitting half-finished for months and it’s the only thing I’ve got with a seasonal window, and she’s right that a window you miss isn’t a window.
Park the newest novel. Not forever — after. Her reasoning was that until the Christmas book is out, and the piece on intent is out, and the books I’ve already published are actually being promoted, working another novel is spinning the creative wheels while the operational work sits there.
As usual, she’s right on the money.
That’s not encouragement. That’s a plan, delivered over pizza.
Then she said the thing I’ve been turning over since.
When it gets hard, it’s easy to go back and keep creating instead of pushing through the hard part. She’s done it herself, which is how she knew.
That’s the whole diagnosis of my year in one sentence. Two books, an album, something written and posted every single day since January first — and almost nothing sold, because selling is the difficult part and making another thing is the part I’m good at. Creating has been my most productive way of not doing the promotion work.
I’ve circled that conclusion for months. Long conversations with myself, walks, notes, a mid-year review I dragged around on vacation and never opened.
She got there over a shared pizza.
What gets me isn’t that she was right. She’s usually right.
It’s that she knows me and has been paying attention the whole time. She’s seen the work I’ve put in this year, every stack of drafts, every project. She has the most trusted vantage point on me that exists, and I don’t pause often enough to ask for what she can see from it.
There’s no dark reason for that. I’m not protecting anything. We just get busy, and the days go, and the conversation that requires sitting down across from each other and being still for an hour keeps losing to the ones that can happen while somebody’s loading the dishwasher.
She told me she’s proud of me. That she’s watched me work harder this year than she’s seen before.
I needed that more than I’d have admitted before lunch.
I meant to have the intent piece finished a few days ago. I missed that deadline.
I’m not going to dress it up. What I’ve done since is put real accountability in place — people who will ask, out loud, on a date.
My wife is the first of them, and she’s had the best view all along.
I’ve had my head down for most of this year. The voice I trust most is right here at the door, and she’s glad to help.
David Willis 