For those of you who don’t know about the IWSG, this is the
time when creators around the world lend support, vent about the process, and
generally release the bad so they can take in more good. It works about like
the ancient scape goat method of tying your sins onto a goat and sending it out
into the wilds (usually to be eaten, but sometimes to rise above the tyranny of
predator/pray situations and become super goat).
This month, I’m talking about fortitude in the process. Publishing
isn’t easy; no one will tell you otherwise, but what no one really prepares
anyone for is the length of time. Sure they say it, but you don’t really
understand it until you’ve tried it for yourself. I remember when I first started reading bloggers' journeys to publication. I’d read about people who got their shot and their contracts,
and they’d say it took forever and ever and ever. They’d say things like “It
took me most of a year to revise that manuscript. I rewrote that scene ten
times before I got it right.”
I’ll tell you a secret: I used to think you could edit all
of the good out of a project. I used to believe that there was something
magical about the first version of the words (and for some people, I’m sure
there is, I’m just not one of them).
I think I got this idea from the fact that early on, it was
hard to convey what I wanted. On the rare occasions when I managed it in the
first shot, I didn’t want to screw it up by messing around with it. As you can
imagine, you get better at that part with time and volume of work. Eventually,
you get to the point where you write a scene, then rewrite it from a different
angle, then for grins you give it another shot and pick which one really
captures the essence of that chapter (or if you’re like me, you’ll take pieces
of each version and smash them together).
For me, the realization that my very first attempt at
something isn’t magical has been, well, a big deal. It also means a lot more
rewriting than I’d hoped to be putting in. Now, every time I think a project is
done, someone points something out, and I have to go back through and revise
for some little detail (or worse some big detail).
The constant feeling like it’s done just to have someone
point out where it needs to be fixed is like playing Super Mario Brothers for the
first time. You keep beating Bowzer, but the stupid mushroom says “I’m sorry
but your princess is in another castle!”
It seems like someone should have given Mario a map to the
big castle and said, “They’re probably holding the princess in the big house.” That
would have saved Mario a ton of time. Every step of this journey seems like “The
princess is in another castle.”
On the other hand, I wasn’t very good at playing Mario in
the first levels, so maybe I needed to work my way up to the big castle at the
end. When I look back at those other bloggers who “made it” and they wrote
about how they spent years spinning their wheels trying to figure out how to
make it work, I realize that was the map. You have to find your own way, and
all the bumps are part of the road. More than ever, I see why people quit. More
than ever, I see I’m not going to stop anytime soon.
I hope I’m getting close to the castle with the princess. In
the mean time, I think I’ll have some mushroom soup.
What about you? Did you stick the landing on the first go
round, or did you need a few practice castles to get there? Or maybe you're like me, swimming in mushrooms.
