One Last Thought

Spent a good deal of the weekend kvetching over "What's wrong with Bones?" but I'm putting that behind me. Because the biggest mistake i can make at this point is to go back and try to "fix" it.

Turn off the inner critics and just write. Get to the end. Then I'll be able to see what the problem is, but until I finish, I can't really know what the story is, and can't know how to make it better.

The lure of perfection can be so seductive. You feel like you can't go on until what you've already got is "perfect," whatever that means. So you rework that first chapter, first page, first paragraph, first sentence, first word until it shines like a diamond. But you'll never get past it, because it can always be fiddled with until the changes aren't neessarily better, just different, and you've completely lost your perspective.

Just plunge ahead. Bones might be something of a mess – and it's not bad, I have to say, there's just this feeling that it's not quite right. But it's my mess, and I won't know for sure how to fix it until I get to the end and see what the story is.

(1,052 words today.)