It's A Wonderful World

Today, I've come to the realization that as horrible and shitty as my book seems now, serious editing will make it better. And one day it will be a beautiful thing, a true work of art, if it's the last thing I do.

I've been a bit novel-depressed the past couple days. See, currently I'm writing a short series of chapters which contain quite a few law elements and other things involving the judicial system (before you ask, G is not a serial killer. He's just kind of... rebellious. And besides, most of this law stuff has nothing to do with him), which I know barely anything about, and so the chapters are extremely hard to get accurate, speed-writing as I am. Despite the fact that it's only my first draft, instances like this one never, ever fail to make me feel like a grossly incompetent, sloppy writer. I just cannot seem to get it into my thick skull that there will be editing, and lots of it. What I'm writing right now is most certainly not what I'll be sending in to my publisher.

Feeling like a horrible writer makes most writers' confidence go down a few pegs, and I'm sad to say that I didn't escape this predicament. I was uninspired. I wanted to take the printed chapters of my book and throw them against the wall. Yesterday, I actually asked myself if the story was too far gone down the crappy route to be continued, and the fact that I would have even for a mere millsecond considered breaking my pledge to Never, Ever Abandon "Life" scares me to no end.

This morning, I still felt pretty crappy about my story. But when I got home from class, something weird happened. I thought to myself, perhaps subconsciously, "Maybe I need to stop forcing it. Maybe I just need to concentrate on something else for today. I can forget, just for one day, that I'm a writer."

So that's what I did. Today, I wasn't a writer, but rather an activist.

I spent the entire afternoon, from half past noon till five o'clock, getting things done for the BPD Feature Project. I fixed the group's name, pasted the link on a few websites, drafted a letter to Randi Kreger (founder of BPD Central), and last, but not least... made a video to Dr. Phil. That last one took me about two hours, but it was two hours well-spent.

At the end of the day, I was left with an accomplished feeling. I felt good about what I was doing, and rather like I could move mountains, if I tried.

Am I really going to let three "difficult" chapters stand in my way? No. No, I am most certainly not. I will write these chapters, and they might be awful... but they're not written in stone. I have to remember that, or else I'll never move forward.

I realized another very important thing today: that although I am perhaps not the person most gifted with words, and wording, and phrases and expressions; although I am not the best writer out there; although I sometimes feel like my writing and chapter plots are sloppy and amateur, even despite it being the first draft... I do know one thing for sure.

All clumsiness aside, I can tell one hell of a story.

And you can call it bragging if that's what you want to call it, I'm perfectly fine with that. That knowledge is what keeps me going sometimes, and to me, that's all that matters.