The morning after

Last night I wrote nine pages. A chapter.

Some of it is pretty good. Some of it sucks. It's a first draft, so it's okay to have parts that big time stink. It's a first draft, so it's simply amazing when any part of it works at all.

When I went to bed I felt pretty good about the whole thing though. Well, as good as a writer feels with a first draft chapter.

When I woke, I had the morning after jitters. Every writer knows what they are. Oh. My. God. I. Wrote. BUT. Oh. My. God. It. So. Sucks.

There's an urge in the pit of my stomach to hit the delete key. Because at this stage of the game I fight the feeling of no one will care. In the end, no one will care about the characters, the story, none of it. They'll think it all sucks, because right now, it does suck.

But in a few days the stick will turn blue. And I'll know deep in my gut there is a viable idea trying to find its way onto the pages.

At that time I'll get really nervous. But it's also the stage where I'll fall totally in love with the characters and story. Because if I don't, no one else ever will either. If I don't do the best job that I can while creating this wonderful viable idea on the page, no one will ever have the chance to meet these people.

I'm fighting everything within me to not read those nine pages. I really want to read them. I want to see how horrible they really are.

So far I've won the battle. I'll print them off and take them to work with me. I'll edit the hell out of them if I have time at work.

And that's the beauty of writing. Right now there's nine pages of crap. Yet, there's nine pages of hope, too.

We write because of the hope. Once we have those first words down, we have hope. We know we can take those sucky pages and turn them into something that eventually sings. There's even the hope that this one is the one. The one where it all comes together and makes a story that finds a home.

It really is the same feeling as the night after a good first date. All we can see at this stage is the potential. Which is a good thing, because getting the first draft down is one of the hardest parts of writing. Staring at a blank page and filling it with enough words to create potential can be very tiresome at times. Without potential and hope, bookshelves would be empty.

Yeah, the morning after is a good morning. A very good morning.