Another wasted draft

It’s the sixth month, page 137, the last line of the eighth chapter. The final word furiously escapes imagination and enters your fingertips, clacking away at the keyboard. Final sentence finished. You decide re-read your work just to check suddenly it hits you: this does not make sense.  There are too many plot holes, my protagonist is a cliché, and my story is not progressing. Worse of all I thought I was doing pretty well. No amount of editing will ever fix this. Oh god what do I do now?

 First do not panic, I know you probably want to cry and to delete it all, just hold on a second do not use drastic measures yet.  It happens to the best and worst of us. We get to that point when we realize that the piece is not what we wanted it to be; hell it doesn't even come close. Even though your confidence may be crushed in that instant do not think of it as failure. Tell yourself that it is another successful draft copy.  Although you may not use again or maybe there is a magnificent line on page 103 just dying to be used in another story yet to be imagined.

It is the fear of failure that drags us into the darkening pit of thinking that entire novels should come to us in a flash.  That we can type faster than our ideas can flow. Time is our friend and nightmare; it can improve our minds' creations or slowly fade away with each paragraph.  Starting over is more disheartening than commencing. Yes, it is hard to find the motivation to start a new story on the first ride round, to come up with an idea what will flow and stick throughout the piece. Now add in the feeling of failure after having not been able to finish your last work, the one you worked so hard on and yet it crumbled to bits before your eyes.  You should never fear what you write or what knot you find yourself trapped in. Part of the creative process is scrapping the old and starting over and over again. The more drafts the better.

 Do not grieve for your loss. Instead, praise the opportunity to start anew. Now is the time to start fresh, to add colour into those flat characters, to create a more cohesive plan, or even inkshed awhile.  Maybe you need to toss the old inhabitants of your tale into a bin of crumpled sheets and dried up pens. Never throw out a draft you write, though; you never know when you will find the perfect spot for that one line to call home. Keep on writing, no matter how many times you have to start over.