As many of you know I had a very uncertain start to writing. I started my journey not really knowing where I'd end up or if I would even end up at all.
In the past, when I would get a little stuck I would begin to doubt myself and think, what am I doing? There's no way I can write a book, this is just another example of why I can't.
I am pleased to announce that I have crossed a bridge of sorts. I apparently have decided to start believing in myself and I didn't even realize I was doing it for a few days...
It happened last week. I was working on some dialogue between my hero and my heroine and I was just not feeling it. The chemistry wasn't right and I felt like I was jumping the gun on the outcome of the scene. I needed to regroup and rethink the whole thing.
The last time this happened to me, it sent me into a tailspin I had a hard time coming out of.
This time, I realized this wasn't going the way I wanted and after a few seconds I thought, well I'll just fix it later and pushed through to finish up my 750 words.
That's it, that was my revelation and I completely missed it at the time. I think that the fact that I missed it really tells me something too. It wasn't a momentous enough of a thing at the time that I felt I needed to pat myself on the back.
No, it wasn't until about three days later I was actually laying in bed and rethinking my scene. What was I trying to accomplish with this scene? How did I want it to ultimately end up? How was this moving my story forward? Then, what I had thought to myself that night I was writing hit me like a bolt of lightning!
I realized that I thought the scene was no good and I didn't think to myself that I needed to quit because I was never going to become a writer. No, I said, I'll just fix it later.
My subconscious had apparently worked out the fact that I was actually doing this and though it was rough, it wasn't half bad.
It's too bad it took my conscious mind a few days to catch up. My subconscious, she's a sly one! She does this to me all the time!
I think I'm done working on something and then a thought will pop into my head out of the blue and sometimes it's intense enough that I need to share it! My husband is constantly giving me a hard time on my swift change in topics or my ability to be doing many things at once.
So I'm happy to say that writing a bad scene no longer sends me into an emotional tailspin that I have work extra hard to come out of. Those 5 words really changed a lot for me and I had no idea at the time!
It's fun to feel my confidence growing. Of course I only knew my confidence was growing because a scene came along that knocked me down a peg or two.
The difference this time is, I know I will work it out. That's what editing is for! I don't need to compare myself to anyone but me. Just keep swimming and all that Jazz.
I'm going to make it to the end of this, even if it never gets published I will at least know that I was able to do something I set out to do. And you know what, I feel pretty good about that!
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