I dumped 7 pages of story yesterday. Not much, mind you, but still painful.
The worst part was, I agonized about deleting the 2nd chapter of this book for like half a day. Was it because I’m lazy and didn’t feel like rewriting, or was it because there was something of value in what I wrote.
After reviewing said pages numerous times, I came to the conclusion that there was aboslutely nothing of value in what I had written. It was crap. Crap Crap Crap. Delete Delete Delete
I realized then that I feel less than adequate as a writer if I write something that later has to be deleted becuse it turns out to be pure crap. Shouldn’t I be past the point of writing crap? Isn’t there some magical “I’ve published twenty books so I couldn’t possibly write crap any longer” milestone? Or is it only Anne Rice who thinks that? 😉
I would guess a lot of authors have to do this, but in the lonely world of writing sometimes we isolate ourselves and put on the ‘dunce’ cap like we’re the only one out there who has written pure dreck and later had to delete it. That everyone else has some secret clue or formula for writing perfect the first time.
So maybe I’m not alone on the crappage front. Or at least it makes me feel better to think so *g*
Off to write non-crap (hopefully)
Jaci