As I sit here, looking at a manuscript that has sat on the verge of completion for five years....yes FIVE, I realize that if I don't write now, I never will. I've been waiting for the 'write' time, the 'write' place, the 'write' circumstances. Well, as Nora says, "You can't edit a blank page." And there will never be a 'write' time. Now IS the time.
It is a book I began about 6 years ago, one I'd written with a now extinct series romance line in mind. Then one day, my computer crashed, I hadn't backed up my work, and all I had left was 270 printed pages. Of a rough draft. With one chapter left to write. Between the crash of the hard drive, going through a divorce and being a newly single mom of 4, 6, and 12 year old children, I gave up. I lovingly tucked the manuscript in a folder and hid it away.... until recently.
Now I am pecking away at the keyboard, retyping the entire manuscript, and resisting the urge to edit as I go. I'm afraid that if I allow myself to start editing, I'll never finish reytping and the story will be lost forever. So here I sit, surrounded by a bunch of loose papers, pecking away, and looking at it with fresh eyes. Boy do I have alot of work ahead of me. The first draft of a first novel! I'd learned so much from my beloved writer's group during the writing of the first draft. I thought I'd forgotten what I'd learned...until I started typing.
I find myself shuddering every other paragraph, a something so glaringly wrong, it jumps off the page at me. And yet, I trudge on, resisting the urge to edit. Instead I console myself with the knowledge that when process is complete, I will most likely reinvision every scene on every page anyway. As it is, there is already an idea for a new chapter, and several I will probably cut all together. The important thing is that I keep writing. Write Now! Right On!
