Passing years have given me the option to relax about writing more than when I was in my thirties.
I once thought that if I didn’t write something, anything every day, the world as I knew it would end. And it did end. The old world ended and the new world began, with every missed deadline, with every unproductive writing day.
In the new world I was given the chance to view things differently, sideways maybe, or upside-down, but differently. The difference changed the shape of every writing project I ever set my mind and body to
complete. It would become a new project.
I’m not going to get into an explanation of being guided by the hand of God, mostly because I don’t know that much about such a thing and think it might be reading way too much into something ultimately quite simple: With every draft comes change.
“But it doesn’t match what’s in my head,” you say.
That’s the point! That’s exactly the point! That’s the joy of it! That’s the adventure!
“But it’s less than I imagined it to be,” you say again.
Imagined it to be? Yes, yes. That’s it—the imagination. Inside our greatest blessing lives an insidious curse we also call the imagination. The cursed part of the imagination can sometimes be cruel task-master, don’t you think? It can be a royal downer, a party-pooper, a veritable plethora of negativity … on steroids. It doesn’t match what you imagined? Of course it doesn’t—because what you imagined wasn’t really real.
The shaking, tottering mess you have in front of you, however, is real. Learn to love that. Nurture that. Allow your imagination to free that mess and make it better than you imagined.
I’ll say it again: That’s the joy of it! That’s the adventure!
The Feeder Project 