I started this journey on a whim. Write a book! I thought. No biggie. Give me a few months. If it's bad, I'll burn it. So I wrote. And wrote. And it was fun and silly and thoughtless. I just slapped words on a screen, helter skelter, without considering grammar or syntax, or any of those Englishy things. Character development? Bah!
Fifty pages later I thought, Huh, I 'm kinda doing it. Strange. What I'd written was funny, but overall rather terrible.
At 120 pages I thought, This is darn long, maybe I should consider where it's going. So I edited, re-edited, and threw down new scenes--out of order--as they came into my head. It got very confusing, utterly frustrating and overwhelming.
I quit.
Two weeks later I pulled up my "manuscript" and with an air of doom and gloom, began reading. I was surprised how much I liked it, so dug in again, brutally slashing favorite parts that didn't lend credence to the story. I considered my characters: who they were, what they felt and why. And I fell in love again. With them. It was weird, and painfully addicting. I liked these people. I couldn't leave Casey hanging. I had to finish her story.
Three hundred and fifty pages into it, I love them even more, and in my free time (never) I read and research about writing. Discouragement still smacks me around sometimes, but I'm slowly fighting back, getting in a jab or two between her pummellings.
I won't quit, and this is why: I have to know what happens between Casey and Ezra...and I have to keep running until I cross the finish line, no matter how tired and cranky and cantankerous I get.
Fifty pages later I thought, Huh, I 'm kinda doing it. Strange. What I'd written was funny, but overall rather terrible.
At 120 pages I thought, This is darn long, maybe I should consider where it's going. So I edited, re-edited, and threw down new scenes--out of order--as they came into my head. It got very confusing, utterly frustrating and overwhelming.
I quit.
Two weeks later I pulled up my "manuscript" and with an air of doom and gloom, began reading. I was surprised how much I liked it, so dug in again, brutally slashing favorite parts that didn't lend credence to the story. I considered my characters: who they were, what they felt and why. And I fell in love again. With them. It was weird, and painfully addicting. I liked these people. I couldn't leave Casey hanging. I had to finish her story.
Three hundred and fifty pages into it, I love them even more, and in my free time (never) I read and research about writing. Discouragement still smacks me around sometimes, but I'm slowly fighting back, getting in a jab or two between her pummellings.
I won't quit, and this is why: I have to know what happens between Casey and Ezra...and I have to keep running until I cross the finish line, no matter how tired and cranky and cantankerous I get.
