the hard things

You know that moment where you realize you have to rewrite the entire book to make it any good? Yeah, I kind of had one of those epiphanies this week. And it stinks. Okay, well, maybe not rewriting the entire book. But a good 1/2 of it at least.

For some reason I always think that the next book will be easier than the last. Because, you know, practice makes perfect. This is a law that doesn't really apply to the crafting of a novel. Why? Because every story is different. You can't just pop it out the same way you constructed your first novel (I mean, I suppose you could, but then you'd have the same book. And who wants to read the same book twice?). You have to find the story organically and sometimes that takes a few chapters. Or drafts. Or hundreds and hundreds of pages. (Ack!)

Sometimes it's like sewing and finding out you did a seam wrong. You could leave it, but it would be noticeable. It would mess up the entire final product. And you can't just fix a tiny part of it. You have to tear the whole thing out and start over. But when you're done tearing and resewing, you have something good. Something whole.

This has been a pep-talk from your's truly, for your's truly.