All things need time. I have to say the break from my novel might have been a good thing. I left the piece feeling like I was paddling around in a circle. That circle was called the introduction. I wrote, and rewrote. Nothing sat right. Everything I ended the intro, I moved onto the next chapters and they didn’t connect. I was writing but it didn’t feel as productive as some of my other pieces I’ve published.
When the wrong kind of circles happen, I know to let it rest a while because the solution will come to me. Just like I trust myself to actually finish a novel these days. Things may not happen when I want them to too but they get published.
Time away from my novel turned into a productive session last night. I was caught between wanting to start out on a roadtrip to the final destination, when I knew I should start out in the open in the town right away. The point of my novel is not a road trip to form lifelong friendships or what happens when you travel with strangers. Well, I found a way to have my main character on the road by right on the edge of town.
What I’m trying to say today is trust your voice, trust yourself. All the elements of your story are there but a good story takes time to form. We all know what our first drafts look like. It takes several edits, and sometimes other people helping us to get out the stories we see on the shelves. Just keep writing. Write until your true voice ends up on the page. If you keep doing this, then your getting closer to your award winning self.
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~Yoon Ju
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