When to say when

by Mary Beth Lee©

“Mary Beth will you…?”

“Mo-om,…?”

“Hon, can you…?”

“Hey MB, I was just calling to see…”

“Mrs. Lee, could you…?”

Summer’s quickly coming to close and you can fill in those blanks however  you want. When you teach, people tend to look at your summer as a blank slate. When you write you look at those blank slates and make plans. At least I did.

And those plans and that idea of blank slate often collide in the conflict of the question: will you…?

I learned a new word this summer.

No.

Sure, I knew no already. Those two little letters made up one of the first words I understood. It kept me safe. It taught me lessons. It encouraged  rebellion. I kept no close to my heart. We were great friends.

Somewhere in the early 20s I lost it. I think it might’ve had something to do with parenthood and falling in love, but no ceased to exist in my vocabulary.

And by the time I started teaching I was the perfect example of the overcommitted woman trying to be all, do all. A yes girl of the most extreme.

And then something happened.

I went a year learning a whole new kind of no. No Writing.

Let me tell you, No Writing was No Fun.

So when this new story just kind of plummeted from the skies into my brain and spit itself out in a 12-page synopsis written in an hour, I knew I had to do something. Those stories don’t happen all that often and when they do you kind of think God’s involved.

And so my journey to reclaiming  no began.

I started with a plan and stated goals. What did I want to accomplish? By when? How was I going to do it?

Summer, off work, perfect  timing.

Within seconds of leaving  that last day of school the questions started.

“Mom, Hon, Mary Beth, Mrs. Lee…?”

My answer: No. N-O.

You know that Capital One commercial with David Spade? Yeah. That was me. Imagine me sitting at the kitchen table, shaking my head with the headphones on and my fingers poised over the keyboard.

My family got used to it. Just for kicks they’d throw out a “Hey, can you…?” But they knew the answer. Until my page goal for the day was down and out they were living  the high life in no-ville.

Talk about freeing.

And productive.

The yes-girl-turned-no-girl  also turned into a major page churner.

At six weeks into summer “no” has helped me write almost 300 pages on a single title women’s fiction, plan the next women’s fiction,  write the first three chapters of a new Intrigue wanna-be,  polish and submit another Intrigue proposal and start an agent search for the single titles I’m writing. All that while also designing and launching my website, something I had no idea how to do before June.

Those two letter letters make up a powerful word. But only because I used it.

One last word of caution. N-O isn’t without its risks.

Guilt is inevitable, but it goes away if you’re accomplishing your goals by using it.

Using no to get out of housework and expecting un-trained family members to pick up the slack is quite the laughable proposition. Be afraid. Be very afraid. But if you can handle the mess, you’ll love what you can get accomplished in the time you used to vacuum the living room in.

Pizza for supper one night is okay. Pizza for supper three nights in a row gets a little old. Sandwich stuff is a must.

Finally, especially difficult for me, that faint memory of the time you used to spend watching every episode of Law and Order, on every channel possible, in every time slot available, becomes little more than a memory of what used to be.

Embrace no. Love it. Use it.

It is your friend.

***Disclaimer: One yes-call for help did happen this summer. I watched my nieces while their sister was in the hospital for migraines. Priorities are important too. By embracing no, I was able to say yes to this and not lose writing time.