Taking Time

There's a huge part of me that is URGENTLY working to get my draft done. Hurry, hurry, hurry....My mind and fingers race. My undergraduate work was in journalism, so I don't think I've ever gotten DEADLINE out of my system.

However, this isn't always the best way to get through revisions. I'm learning that some things take time.

Recently, I decided to add a new development in my draft. I worked it in, and then I realized I didn't know how I was going to resolve it. I thought about it and thought about it. I went on to work on other things, but I kept this particular development dancing around the back of my mind. Suddenly, it came to me. I figured out the perfect way to work out the situation.

I remember the excellent movie, Stranger than Fiction. The novelist wrestles with her ending, but she cannot sit down to write it until she can get it right. Finally, it hits her one morning, a sudden inspiration and the perfect ending for her novel.

It's okay to think, to ponder, and to dream. Let situations arrange and rearrange themselves into possibilities. Sooner or later, the words hit the page.

I still prefer sooner.