No More Playing It Safe

This sounds like a direct contradiction to my post yesterday, but sometimes you just gotta let the hide go with the hair. (Now what does that expression mean, and where'd it come from?)

I've taken plenty of risks in my time, risks that for the most part have paid off. They were all calculated risks (I'm a natural born plotter of life as well as books, as you may have guessed.) But to the outside world, it looked as though I'd taken leave of my senses.

Let's see. There was the time I decided that I would stencil a border on my pale buttercup yellow walls with dark blue oil stencil paint, though I'd never stenciled so much as a label in my life. My mama nearly had a heart attack. But it turned out beautifully. (I'd watched a This Old House Episode.)

There was the time I took a job with a $5K pay increase, when I had no clue what on earth I'd be doing. But it sounded fun.

There was the time I decided to go round the world to adopt The Kiddo. People kept asking me, "Why don't you get an AMERICAN baby?" I couldn't have asked for a more wonderful blessing of a daughter, a true gift from God.

There was the time I told that editor, "Sure, I can revise this book and change everything from Chapter Three on and have it to you by October." (It was late May.) It wound up being the first book I ever sold.

But even with those risk-taking propensities, I still find myself playing it safe. I'd been following the news of Nashville. I'd heard the call for writers to donate their time and expertise. I kept thinking, "Who'd want to bid on anything from me?"

Then The Husband texted me that the Grand Ol' Opry was six feet under water and that 19 people had lost their lives. It showed me what a cowardly yellow-belly I was being.

I've sent up some smoke signals to the Do The Write Thing organizers, indicating my willingness to donate a critique partial and maybe, a la Michelle Wolfson, a 30 minute phone conversation. Don't know if they still need it, don't know if they even want it, but I'm in.

And I'm praying for both Nashville and those folks who will be suffering because of the oil spill in the Gulf.