What About Your Mustache?

It’s been that kind of day. You know, the kind of day where every little thing pushes you one step closer to the edge of cranky canyon? That woman at the table next to you who is talking loudly on her phone while you’re trying to write. The fact that you left your headphones at home. The reality that your children have the audacity to ask for lunch in the middle of the day and start to get a little whinypants when it doesn’t appear (huh, wonder where they get that whinypants thing?). It’s been the kind of day that you think, do I really have to feed them AGAIN? The kind of day where the normal, everyday things add up to insanity. But the thing that really sends you over the edge? Oh, my writer friends, the thing that will launch you right off that cliff and straight down into the crabby chasm even on the most ordinary days…the WAITING.

WAITING for that email to appear.

WAITING for some feedback.

WAITNG for it to be your turn.

WAITING for some sign, ANY sign of life in your writing world. There are some days that we handle it all with grace. And poise. Let’s call these the Good-Mustache Days.

On a Good-Mustache Day, the waiting is no big deal. It’s just part of the business. We take it with a smile. It means we are out there! It means we are a writer! On a Good-Mustache Day, the waiting just makes us a part of something bigger. Something meaningful. And we wait with hope that good things are on their way.

But then there are the Bad-Mustache Days.

On a Bad-Mustache Day, the waiting is sinister. It is plotting to destroy us. It is slowly sucking the life, the joy of writing, right out of us. The waiting tries to convince us that we are imposters. It tells us that we will never succeed. And we wait with the certainty that the silence will never end.

But the Bad-Mustache days are fleeting. The sun goes down and puts an end to THAT kind of day. And we wake up with fresh faith that this day…THIS DAY…will be the day that SOMETHING happens. We comb that mustache down to a nice, neat, patch of Good-Guy-ness and hope returns!

And if nothing else, you can cheer yourself up with the realization that we’re talking about babies. With facial hair. (I mean, really. Look at those babies!)
Now get yourself to a library or bookstore and scoop up MUSTACHE BABY or MUSTACHE BABY MEETS HIS MATCH! by Bridget Heos and Joy Ang.

So tell me, what does your mustache look like today?