It’s Friday and it’s payday. For me that means…overpriced coffee for breakfast ^_^ Which is funny because now that I have it, I don’t think I like it as much as what I’ve been having at home. I picked up this coffee creamer that’s skinny caramel macchiato and it’s absolutely epic in the coffee I make at home.

So, conclusion? Not so infatuated with this stuff in the white cup with the green logo any more. Except the breakfast sandwiches…OML. EPIC.

It’s kind of like when you write a first draft of a story. And you love it. And you adore it. And you want to marry it and have its short-story babies. After the SNI becomes a cohesive thought on paper you’re all like ‘I’m in love…swoon’.

At least, I am.

And then you walk away for a day, or two, or three-hundred and ninety-eight. And you look at it again and say ‘something’s not right, but I can’t place my finger on it. It can’t be wrong, though, because it’s epic. We’re in love. I could never ask my manuscript to change for me. That’s not why I married wrote it.

But your CP’s and readers tell you what to tweak and where. And you groan and growl and tell them they’re wrong and justify it all, but slowly you crawl back into it anyway. And it blows. Not the story, though at this point you think so. The fixing. The rewriting. You get in two-thirds, or one-half, or one-quarter of the way and go ‘this revision is the most horrid thing since Auntie Granacola’s ash and coffee-ground no-bake cookies.’

Cue the whining. The complaining. The crying. The desire to surrender and never write again and ‘oh. my. hell. the original draft was so much better than this and why can’t I just go back to that and clean it up? I loved that story. I wanted to have its illicit children.’

But you can’t. Something inside won’t let you. Because the pespective or voice wasn’t quite right, or your characters fall too deeply into agender (or other) stereotype to make them solid and compelling, or you just didn’t understand your MC’s voice, personality, and deepest, darkest secrets they don’t even tell themselves until you were almost done with the book.

So you perservere. You sweat coffee and bleed depression and you make it through one of the most painful surgeries you’ve ever experienced.

And O.M.G. It’s beautiful. It’s the most stunning thing you’ve ever seen. Like the story you know and love and remember, but…better. Is that even possible? Sure, you’re not superficial, but that little nip/tuck/lift sure did wonders for it. And then you read the orginal and cringe and wonder how you ever could have thought it was finished. Truth be told, that coffee in the white cup with the green logo isn’t really as tasty as it you remember, and it cost four-hundred times more than the stuff that only took you a little more effort to make for yourself.

Sure, it gives you an (weak) excuse to be late to work, but…there are more important things in life. Besides, no one said you couldn’t still order the breakfast sandwich. No reason to cut that out of the manuscript.

Okay, so maybe no one else does this but me. I should probably stop projecting. I’m just trying to remind myself that it’s okay if the first draft of the story I’m working on right now is a little weak, even though I adore it and want to have it’s coffee babies (and wow, something tells me I’m mixing metaphors). In the end, it’ll all be worth it.

Do you go through anything similar?