Escape

Have you ever had the impulse to run away from those things about your life that you find distasteful? In high school I would sometimes get in my car and drive the 45 minutes through the swamp that separated my smallish hometown from the city. I always turned around, but just knowing I could leave helped.

I have occasionally followed the impulse to get away. I moved from my parents' home the morning after I graduated from high school. It was a good decision. I made a painful break with my first dissertation advisor when he became too close and personal. Another right decision.

More often than not, though, I have not followed the impulse to leave. When I was unhappy after my first semester in college, I went back. When the dissertation was miserable, I kept at it. When I was most unhappy with my marriage, I stayed. These were the correct decisions.

Now I am experiencing that urge to bolt again. This time, it is the text that has me down.

I've had some time this week to contemplate the text, my excruciatingly slow progress on it, and my mental health. And I want out. This isn't worth my sanity. Only my children are worth my sanity, and they are already chipping away at it. I don't need an evil publisher to help them.

The whole project is troubled. First, the timelines were never realistic. There is subtle, but real pressure for me to plagiarize in order to speed things up. I won't do it. Second, the publisher won't allow me to communicate with my editor unless she is copied on every message or conferenced in on phone calls. This is bad on so many levels I don't know where to start. Third, the publisher is unpleasant (my former coauthor calls her “psychotic”) and is extremely aggressive. Utterances like, "We own you" don't help.

I read my contract this week. Yes, I signed it two years ago, but I only read it today. Brilliant, I know. The thing is riddled with the word "exploit" which makes me uneasy. Is this regular legalese or was it a warning that this would be a hellish endeavor? If I understand my contract, then the only penalty for withdrawing is that they can take my work. I can live with this. I faxed the contract to my brother, the hot shot attorney. After he tells me how stupid I was to sign it without running it by him first, he'll interpret it for me.

I've already written a letter to the publisher. In it, I explain that it isn’t feasible to have this complete this summer because I know she wants it to be well-researched and original. In it, I say that I’m increasingly anxious about the project and don’t wish to continue in this manner. I give her three scenarios. In the first, they identify a new coauthor. In the second, we reevaluate deadlines and come up with something a year out so that the content can be strong and original. In the third, we cut our losses and part ways.

I don’t know if I’ll send the letter. My former coauthor (who left the project with a letter to her that ended with a “You aren’t the kind of person I can work with”) said that I should expect her to react with fury and to expect a storm. Am I up for that?