The Slush Pile of Life

Last night I was thinking about the slush pile. For an editor, that probably signifies a crate or teetering stack of unsolicited manuscripts waiting for a few spare minutes of the editor’s time. This is a project that gets done in 5-minute bursts during a boring lunch hour or a rainy Saturday. . .I don’t know for sure. I’m just guessing, but I think that about covers it.

The slush pile is something you tackle when you’ve tackled everything else, or when you don’t feel like tackling anything else, when you get a break, or when you need a break or when the guilt of seeing something left undone for so long overwhelms you.

I realized as I contemplated a manuscript I wrote that surely resides in an editor’s slush pile waiting for the day when she has that spare minute to look it over, or that day when I drum up the courage to submit it elsewhere even though I haven’t had an official rejection on it yet, that everyone has a slush pile.

I have a literary slush pile of course – a collection of half finished manuscripts that for whatever reason ceased to ring my bell. I have a reading slush pile, the books in the shopping bags in the bottom of my closet that I will get to read only when there is nothing brand new and infinitely more interesting on the top of the pile.

I have a project slush pile too – those stacks of old photographs that would make fabulous scrapbook pages one day when I feel like sorting through colored paper and stickers and making something cute to put in an album. I have completed quilt tops that need hours of painstaking stitching to turn them into usable blankets or wall hangings. I have junk draws that need to be sorted and closets that need to be weeded. I also have the procrastination slush pile and this is the worst one – this is made up those things I should do, that really need to be done, but that I hate to do, or just find annoying and therefore will look for any excuse to put them off. There’s that visit to the dental hygienist, the call to the people who clean out the air ducts, the painting of the bathroom radiator cover, none of which are life or death, all of which are necessary in the long run, better off done than not done but ugh. . .I just don’t feel like doing them.

One of these days I will dedicate some time to tackling my slush pile, as any editor might do as well. Maybe I’ll get lucky, as an editor might, and uncover a gem, hit the lottery and discover a hidden a bestseller – maybe I’ll just discover whiter teeth, cleaner air conditioning and a better looking radiator cover.

One of these days, but today isn’t it.