I’m struggling with this revision* I’ve got to do. S-t-r-u-g-g-l-i-n-g. Last week I realized that I wasn’t accomplishing what I thought I was accomplishing, which was creating enough danger and tension in my story to compel the reader to keep going. I imagined a reader getting to the third chapter and saying, ‘So what?’ and putting down the novel, which is exactly what I do when I get bored with a book. Like Pride and Prejudice.

So I reworked the plot and now I’ve got to go and actually write the chapters that fit in with the new plot. Ugggghhhhh. I don’t want to do it. I really don’t want to do it. But it has to be done.

I wish I had a word for the role that my husband plays in this process. The best word I have is ‘doubter.’ Like when I finished, I thought I had something great. He doubted it. Not because he doesn’t think I’m capable of something great, but because what he had read thus far didn’t meet the greatness mark. Part of me becoming a writer is teaching him how to be a critic without crushing my soul. He’s coming along. We’re on the same page today (heh) because he sent me to these videos.

This is Mr. Ira Glass, the creator of This American Life, talking to some unknown personage about the craft of creating a story. But it’s not the creating the story part that gets me in the gut. It’s the part about how much crap you create before you are good enough to make the story you know you want to make. Thanks, Mr. Ira Glass. I needed to hear this. If you only listen to one, listen to the third one.

*I wrote a novel. It’s not great yet.