Writing and Middle School Robotics…. I’ve learned that they are practically the same thing.

Bear with me. (Quick sidenote: No need to look up if I used the correct bear vs bare. I already

looked it up for you. Bare is only used in reference to removal of something. Thank you,

Merriam-Webster Instagram account.)

Have you ever attended a middle school robotics competition? I have. Quite a few in fact, as my

twelve-year-old is something of a budding roboticist. You think the last quarter of the Super

Bowl is stressful, high energy, exciting, nail-biting? Try sitting in the stands for a nine-hour

robotics competition where you child competes for literally eight minutes – nine if she makes it

to the finals.

In these competitions, there are a lot of misplaced outbursts of anger, a lot of asking “why am I

even doing this?”, a lot of tears. And there is a lot of tearing things down and starting from the

beginning.

Just recently, my daughter and her two robotics teammates had the following dilemma – they

had an adequate robot. It won an award at the first competition. It was able to score a few

points. Most importantly, it worked. But, it was pretty clear early on that this adequate robot

was not going to get them to the state championships. They had a choice: continue to perform

in the middle of the pack without much effort OR completely rebuild the robot in hopes of

having something spectacular.

I was recently faced with the same dilemma – continue down the path of the novel I was

currently writing with very little hope of publishing OR completely start over in hopes of making

something spectacular.

(You may be thinking: I just read this post. Sadly, no. This work in progress is the rebuild from

earlier in the year. I have learned one lesson – talk to my agent before committing to a project.)

Like a middle school robotics competition, the people closest to me (mainly The Husband) saw

a lot of misplaced outburst of anger, a lot of “why am I even doing this?”, a lot of tears. There

was definitely one night of lying in bed deciding that I was done. Done researching, done

writing, done trying to make this dream come true.

Here’s where I’m ashamed (of myself) and proud (of my child) to say I was inspired by the

middle school robotics team in my life. They have worked extremely hard over the last month

to rebuild their robot from the ground up. They’ve already won an award, scored more points

than ever possible with their original machine, and have high hopes for the rest of their season.

I took a page out of their (design) notebook and started again. It’s frustrating because I was just

here – at square one. It’s exciting because I do love the challenge of a new project. It’s

heartbreaking because I still love my (now two) projects that have been set to the side. But it’s

doable.

I just reminded myself that if my twelve-year-old can do it; so can I.