After letting the first draft of my book dummy sit for a few weeks and stew, I finally grit my teeth and opened the file again a few days ago. Returning to a piece of work like this is always a little like waking up and walking into the living room after a big party. Oh my god. What have I done. What was I thinking. Where do I begin to clean up this mess.
Bird By Bird. Let’s Start at the Very Beginning, A Very Good Place To Start. Step by Step. One Foot in Front of the Other. And all the rest of the sayings that we live by to get ourselves motivated and going.
Still, the attack dogs come at me quickly, and they are overwhelming. It needs more rhymes. It needs more words. It needs to be written in verse! NO. It needs as few words as possible. It needs to be emptied of words. It needs simple sentences with a complete lack of adjectives. Let the illustrations be the adjectives.
Oh man. I am in trouble.
So I did what I often do when I am feeling lost in this creative vacuum; I sat down with my daughter and read books. Sometimes it just helps hearing yourself read someone else’s writing.
What works? What doesn’t? Why does my own child love certain books?
Suddenly this little light bulb came on. Bing! Try using a different point of view, Einstein! (why is the little voice in my head always so sarcastic?)
Anyway, an hour later, I sat with a document in front of me, saved as “3rd Person Draft”. It came pretty quickly. I will have to wait a couple days to see if it’s actually as fresh and breezy as it felt while I was writing it– again, it could just have been another house party– but I am hopeful.
It feels like a good direction. It feels less dusty. It feels like the story is finally coming through.
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