I’ve often wondered what the origin of that phrase was. I assumed it came from branding cattle, i.e., if you put too many branding irons in your fire, they don’t heat up as efficiently as when there are fewer and you don’t get a distinct, crisp brand.

Or, I thought, maybe it’s from the time before electric irons were invented and you had to heat your irons on a wood stove or in a fireplace to press clothes. I can vaguely remember my paternal grandmother’s maid ironing clothes. When the iron she was using got too cool, she’d return it to the stove top and pick up the one she had heating there.

Turns out it has its origins in blacksmithing. If you have too many hunks of iron in the fire, again the inefficient heating comes into play, but mostly its if you have too many projects going at once, one bit of iron may get overheated or under-heated, resulting in a defective tool.

It’s probably a combination of several different aspects of heating iron in a fire, but what it comes down to is it means you have too much going on.

Analogies Aside

A writer can reach that point, too. We can have too many projects running at the same time, and like those handmade tools, those projects can suffer from too much or lack of attention.

This is a situation I’m all too familiar with. Because I was the person who “got things done” in my former work, I got the critical projects. My bosses knew I took it as a personal challenge to meet deadlines and that I seemed to thrive under that stress. I know now I wasn’t really thriving, that I was simply an adrenaline junkie and did love the attention, because I’m sure the stress from all that contributed to the issues I’ve had with my ticker, which needs to beat on for lots more years.

I never once took an iron from the fire too soon or too late in the former job, and I can’t seem to break the habit in my writing. I have taken other irons from my authorship fire. I’ve reduced my presence on social media from three posts a day to one, occasionally two. I’ve given up trying to write marketing or promotional copy on my own and have AI help me out. Turns out ChatGPT is a way better hustler than I am. I dropped almost all my volunteer organizations that I joined when I retired and settled in my new home town, not because I no longer support those causes. I do, but they are time-eaters. Some irons had to go, and the one thing I wouldn’t do is remove any writing irons from the fire.

Some people have suggested that, but writers know when you have stories to tell, you have to tell them. You can’t put them aside.

Even When You Have a Choice

As with the volunteer opportunities, there are things in life you can give up but instead you choose to do them.

I have several book events coming up at the end of March and early April. One is a three-hour drive away. The other is 20 minutes. The three-hour-drive one means an overnight stay in a hotel. Well, it doesn’t, really, but I hate long drives now. A six-hour round-trip in a car on some of northern Virginia’s and Maryland’s busiest highways is not something I’ll do with any sort of eagerness.

I could give one up, but the point is to get people to buy my damned books. Sometimes face-to-face works better.

I’m working my way through the publishing process for an eBook box set due to come out on June 1. I began work on it four years ago, drafting three novels in three years. I then combined them for the editing/revising, beta-reading, editing/revising, and prepping them for my editor. I purchased professional covers and have been tweaking them for a good part of those four years. Proofreading and formatting are to come, but the box set is on schedule for June 1.

The extra iron I added to that box set fire was I decided to flash publish the print editions of the three novels–separately. I didn’t have to do that, but I have a big author conference coming up in September, and I wanted print editions available for that event.

And then there’s the Northern Ireland book I want to publish in December. That’s quite possibly the iron that may get removed from the fire and reinserted later.

There’s a sequel to my first mystery that’s been prodding me to get it ready for the publication cycle.

There’s a trilogy that may wrap up my characters’ 40+ year story of “real spies with real lives.”

And I just thought of a great topic for a nonfiction book.

On top of all that, I have pick-up-grandkids-from-school-and-babysit-until-Mom-is-off-work duty twice a week. I sing in a local choir which has twice a month rehearsals. I have my writer’s group open mic once month, and my book club is once a month, too. Not to mention keeping myself fed and in good hygiene and cleaning the house. Actually, I just took that latter iron from the fire by hiring Merry Maids.

Yes, I choose to do those things, to paraphrase the late President Kennedy, “not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

Because there’s no escaping that’s who I am.

I promise not to whine. Too much.