Hope

What do I write about when I feel I've written to you about everything?

How about hope?

Hope, depsite what most people think, is not a wish that someone makes that something will happen. It is not a belief that something specific will happen. But it is a belief that something positive will happen.

There is a big difference between those items. A wish is a petition to an external grantor -- God, the wee folk, Fate, the Goddess of one's choice. The wisher washes their hands of agency and often blames the external grantor if the wish is not fulfilled. For example, "I wish I would get published" gives the responsibility for my getting published to The Powers That Be, who so far have failed me. Bribery -- "I've been good, God, where's my cookie?" -- is also a danger to wishes (and very specific prayers) and ends in disappointment.

Believing that something specific will happen takes the onus off a god figure, but provides only one narrow possibility for fulfillment. This time the fulfillment is in the hands of a worldly grantor: "I wish Tor/Forge would publish my book." There's only one way for this to be fulfilled, and how good my book is doesn't enter into it, nor does whether it's something that fits their imprint. Worse, if I receive this, I will never believe my worth if it happens. (Ok, maybe I would.)

For the final part, I'd like to share an old joke with you:

Sven prays every Sunday in church that he will win the big lottery. Week after week he prays, and week after week he fails to win. One day, he prays: "Lord God, I have prayed in church every week to win the big lotto, and I don't win. Have you forsaken me?"

A big booming voice rocks the whole church building: "Sven, buy a lottery ticket."

This joke has a lot to do with hope as it really exists. Hope is, first and foremost, a sense of positivity around the situation. It doesn't provide a script for what should happen, but opens our eyes to what could happen.

For example, if I hope for the way to open (Old Quaker speak) toward getting published, then that can be fulfilled in many ways -- through finding beta-readers after a year of searching, finding a developmental editor in my Camp NaNo cabin, finding my way through a knotty plot problem, getting an aha about a query letter, getting an agent, etc. I might not have seen any of these developments as progress if I saw hope as granting a wish or demanding the universe deliver.

Hope is thinking, "This could happen" every time I send a batch of query letters, hooking up with a developmental editor despite my fears that she'll feel my manuscript is crap, looking at the latest message from one of my betas and thinking about how to improve something.

If you've been reading this, you know that sometimes I feel hopeless (and sometimes I am hopeless). But then I rise again, and hug hope to my chest for another round.