Losing Kate

I learned correction is the highest compliment while I studied dance. If a teacher never corrected you in class, it typically meant your talent wasn’t worth investing in.

Even a compliment didn’t mean quite as much as a correction to me. It’s good to know you’re doing it right, but better to know how you could be doing it better.

This is a mentality I took with me as I scribbled poetry into countless journals when I was younger and still writing poetry.

I would tear apart my writing on the page, sometimes making so many edits that the text was unreadable. I learned that the best poems I wrote were more often than not the ones that needed the most edits.

Just as in dance, the more I needed to change something, the more potential it had.

Now, I am currently editing a section of my novel that I thought I could breeze through. I thought I would just need to tweak some sentences, make sure the characters are consistent with where they end up, and fill in any gaps.

Turns out, the whole section is one giant gap that I have to completely re-write. Even though I logically understand that editing is a sign of potential, looking over the edge at the giant hole you left, a shovel in hand, and a massive pile of dirt you have yet to sort is nothing short of daunting.

Correcting your posture and rearranging stanzas, while still being both massive undertakings, don’t have the same weight as realizing something you thought was good doesn’t really make any sense. I try to remind myself that I only need to take it one chapter at a time, but the bigger picture looms in the back of my head.

Even bigger than the plot is my career. I’m not a published novelist, and I want to be one in the next five years. And if I don’t get this fucking thing worked out in the next two, than my timeline gets pushed back even further.

I’ve had to let things I’ve written go. I have two book manuscripts that will never see the bookshelf. I gave them a fair shake. But they aren’t who I am as a writer any more.

But I feel different about what I’m writing now. But I felt different about every project I’ve written. I’ve always felt like this is the one that starts it all. So I wonder that this project may be no different.

Then I take a step back from my fears, take a breath, and remember that part of the writing process is being just delusional enough to think it will be better the next time.

I was a delusional dancer as well. Even though I was born inflexible with flat feet and asthma, I believed I would dance professionally. That never happened, but I did improve. I got cast in prominent roles. I became better than if I never believed I would amount to anything.

I know I have to edit. I’ve been slapped in the face by my manuscript with that fact, but I should take another page from Kate’s younger self. So my advice, believe you are the greatest until you need to build yourself back up.