Gooooood evening all you lovely people,
Before you ask, yes I have a nearly-empty glass of wine next to me and yes I am feeling rather good about that. Second of all, I want to talk about something tonight that I have struggled with all week, before suddenly having the greatest feeling of my life because of it.
So after finishing edits on chs. 1 and 2 I moved to ch. 3. Now, chapter 3 has been so difficult to edit and this draft is so bad that it has taken me this whole week of editing and I’m still not done yet. It was so awful, I’m not going to lie ,the thing was fucking terrible and I wanted to just chuck the whole thing and forget about it, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to waste my time, or what time I’ve already spent on the project (countless hours). I just didn’t want to give up on it. So, I forced myself through, paragraph after paragraph, page after page, shoveling through al the bad to find the good and make it better.
Finally, this morning I was doing some more editing, hoping to finish ch. 3 edits (still yet to be completed) then I reread what I had edited and it captivated me, pulled me into the story, made my heart pump along with the character’s, it twisted my stomach into knots as I felt everything the character felt and suddenly… Nothing else mattered but that manuscript, those edits, my characters. Nothing else mattered. This was me. Fully and completely me. My thoughts, my dreams, my story.
It lifted me up, my heart still pounding and I couldn’t stop smiling. It was almost like am epiphany of sorts letting me know that this is what I should be doing, that this is who I am and who I’m supposed to be.
It’s such a good feeling having it confirmed that I’m not just wasting my time, that this is what I’m meant to do. If my second draft can make me feel this good and this connected to the characters, then I can only imagine what the final draft will be like.
I hope you enjoyed sharing this experience with me. I feel excited to share it with you guys. Thank you so much for listening, for giving me your time and for being here. Never stop reading, never stop writing. You are worth it and this is what you’re meant to do. To all those who are strong enough to continue forward even when it seems things keep trying to tear you away, but you can’t bare the thought of leaving it behind, you are worth it. This is who you are and we’ve got your back.
Goodnight guys, never let anyone/anything crush your dreams when they keep screaming at you, unable to let go unable to go uncompleted. Trust yourself, lots of love.
Celine Rose Marie