The moment you have to step away...

I have a hard time letting go. I always have. It’s haunted most aspects of my life. But in this last year, I’ve struggled with this trait in my writing more than I ever have.

There are some stories that should never see the light of day. Ones so completely flawed, so awful in one regard or another, that there’s no salvaging them except to press the flashing red delete button and start from scratch. It’s never easy. But every writer goes through this, most notably in the beginning of their career. Let’s face it, as a beginner writer, there are so many fatal flaws to our writing that we just don’t know about or can’t see. And that’s OKAY. It’s good even. Because the more you write, the more mistakes you make, and the more you grow. I have more early manuscripts tucked in dark, dusty drawers than I care to admit. But I moved on. I wrote more stories, published. I’ve continued to grow and develop over time. Each story has been a little better.

Now  I’m going to tell you about something that I’m NOT okay with. I wrote a story. I loved it. It was awesome. But then I realized that it was the middle of a series. Shrugging, I tucked the story away in a drawer and started on the first book in the series, knowing that I’d come back and edit the tucked away book when I was ready for book 3. I wrote the first story, pouring everything into it. It was one of the longest stories I’d written, and I felt relief when it was done. Sounds great, right? I mean, I finished it! That’s huge. Woohoo!
SO wrong.

It wasn’t soon after that I realized I’d made several catastrophic errors in the story and that I’d need to rewrite from scratch. I cried. Seriously. A lot. It threw me off for months until I couldn’t take it anymore and tucked it away so I could write another story. I promised myself I’d come back to it, fix it somehow, make it happen. All that work couldn’t have been done for nothing!

So, I finished another story, then pulled the abandoned novel out of the draw with a new sense of purpose, a bright, shiny, new optimism. Halfway through, I cried (again!) and shoved that story back into the draw, feeling lost and hopeless about it, lamenting all the work I’d put into it and questioning why I was driving myself crazy with it.

I moved on, wrote another story. And guess what I did right after that one? Yup. I came right back to the bane of my writing career, determined, aggressive. I would MAKE this story work. I would MAKE it publishable. More tears, more frustration, and more despair. It was hopeless. Each and every single scene would need major work. At that point, I might as well start from scratch.

I’ve never had to do that in the past.

Why was this so hard for me to accept? Why couldn’t I just let it go? I kept channeling Elsa and belting out, “Let it go. LET IT GO!!!” but even then I couldn’t let it go. I’m not sure I ever will.
I think the hardest part of it is that if I don’t fix it, if I don’t make it work, the other story, the one that I wrote that was 3rd in the series, is toast too.

I might come back and try again someday. Ahhh. Editing is a wonderful wonderful thing that loves to kick my butt and bring on fresh tears. There’s no sugar coating it. There’s no escaping it. It’s needed to make a story shine, to bring out its potential. But sometimes it also too much.

I’m sure I’m not alone out there. Stories are hard to write. They take time and so much emotional investment. I’m drained when they’re done. But being able to publish them, to share them with others, to hopefully bring a little joy to another’s life… that’s why I do what I do. That’s why I deal with the crying and helpless feelings when they come.

I could rewrite this story from scratch, and I might. I think the biggest lesson I need to learn though is to let things go. I’m a writer at the beginning of her career. There’s so much time, so many stories to write.

Deep breaths… it’ll be shared someday. Somehow. That’s the hope, anyway.