I'm going to act like a season veteran here, with all zero of my books finished. Which, makes me a pretty good writer to talk about starting over. I've done it a lot. I've been writing drafts since I was 11. Three years ago I was sure I was ready. Two years ago I thought I was close. A year ago I thought I was going to do it. Every time I got to 30,000 words, but never further. I'd lose momentum. I'd lose track of what the heart of the story was. I'd realize that everything I had written was crap. And, though not all of it was, I know I was right that that draft would never had made it to be a book, even if I would have finished.
So why do I think this time will be different?
But that question isn't important. I was asking it for me, not you.
This goes out to all you who haven't finished a draft yet, you who dream of worlds and characters. You who someday, will finish a draft, and be published.
It's hard. But it's worth it. Even if you get stuck at chapter one, or chapter 30. Even if you don't understand how the hell to get past the middle of the story. Even if you have to write it all by hand because you don't have a computer.
When you have to start over because it took you so long you we're a different person by the time we got through the first half. When you share it with someone and they try to be encouraging, but you can tell it's not good. When you're too scared to share it because you know it's not like to work you read.
When you have to start over on a draft it's frustrating. And that's where it's easy to give up. Because you failed. You tried, you gave it your all, and you still failed. You might start to doubt your dream. Doubt that you can ever do it.
You can. You can and you will.
You pick up the pen and you try again. Or open a new word doc. Or pick a new story and start over. Put those headphones on your ears and blast the music so loud it blocks out all doubts. Type those horrible, grammar error ridden, cliche filled words. Keep going. You'll get there someday. No matter what happens. The only way you don't get there, is if nothing happens. If you stop. Every road that involves you writing. A sentence a day. A hundred and fifty words on a note on your phone before you fall asleep. That's progress.
I have a self set goal of 2,000 words a day. And to be honest, that only happens on very very good writing days. Maybe one day a week. On a good week. But on bad weeks, it's not even 1,000. I had a horrible Tuesday, and it was late, and I was exhausted, and I wrote 150 words and crashed. But I can't feel bad about Tuesday because It was still a day I wrote.
It can be so hard to write while in school, while working full time, while dealing with an illness or being a parent or any number of obstacles and responsibilities. Trust me, I know. When I was in school, I barely wrote at all. I dreamed and dreamed and dreamed. Vira and I texted often, if not daily, about world building, about characters. Sending snippets of dialogue and scenes in between classes, in classes, late at night, in the middle of the night. We'd get together at Starbucks (the only local coffee shop open late) and we'd work on our world map and fix plot lines and plot holes and write out plots for our books every couple months, because neither of us had a lot of time. We'd talk and talk and talk about what someday could look like for us in those moments. Two dreamers working to try to make a crazy dream that adults say are impossible real.
Books change lives. Books save lives. I think Vira said it well "I was brought up on stories of intrigue and adventure. Tales of endless winters and lion kings, schools of witchcraft and wizardry, summer camps for demigods, and a quest to destroy an accursed ring. It was these words, these tales of legend and myth, that taught me how to survive in a fallen world. And so, I plan to return the favor."
That's what books do. Books change us for the better, help us understand the world outside ourselves.
One of my close friends was talking about books with me the other day and was telling me about one I believe was a memoir she read about an African American man living in the Bronx a hundred years ago. And the writing wasn't the best, and it wasn't the most interesting, but she read it so she could see from that prospective. Because she will never be an African American man in the Bronx, but through the written word, she can get a glimpse into that life. Into that mans world. Into his head.
I have a friend who has some mental illnesses, and books have been there for her. I am Type 1 Diabetic and through challenging, lonely times, books are there. Books and the worlds the authors have dreamt have been there.
If that is what's ahead of you as you struggle to put the pen to the page because of doubts, because of a few failures, then you'll be able to see beyond it and keep going. If this dream in your heart that you carry around day after day and whisper to the stars about. If this is who you are. A writer. A Storyteller. Born of dreams and stars and lightning bugs. If your attention is always captured by how people think and places you can never visit and experiences you can only imagine. If you have other places in your mind that exist only because you made them so, if you have stories to tell that make you laugh and cry and giddy with joy.
Even if your skill doesn't match your dreams yet, keep going.
Please keep going.
We need your story.
Much love,
Thane
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