Letting Go...

My work is out there, sitting gathering dust on an agent’s desk or clogging up their inbox. It has even been rejected a time or two, but that isn’t the letting go I want to talk about. Oh no, I want to talk about first drafts.

First drafts where the possibilities are endless. Where characters are still forming therefore nothing they do is wrong… yet. Any twist and turn could be the twist or turn that makes the plot fly. Who cares about repetition? Who cares that you have head hopped and changed point of views part way through a scene? All you need to care about is getting the story down.

I am in the throes of a first draft. It feels like the beginning of a new relationship. You still think those little quirks are adorable. That every little thing the story does is fabulous, amazing, life changing. Each sentence unveils something startling and exciting.

This week I wrote about two characters holding hands and in thinking who were the last people they would have held hands with I found a whole new character and motivation.

It is scary, exhilarating, breath taking and the best therapy to stop worrying about what is going on in some agent’s office somewhere. 


Come back on Sunday to hear from Susanna