You take the good you take the bad

Small victories -- is "achievements" a better word choice? -- pave the way for larger victories. Fair? Fair. So at the risk of jeopardizing future victories I have some initial thoughts on this whole writing thing based on what I have accomplished lately.

#1 My focus muscle is not strong. I am easily distracted.

#2 I have a repetition problem. When I'm not concentrating I can write sentences just fine. When I'm trying to sound literate, I end up with lots of similar starting and boring sentences. I spend the bulk of my time rewriting to introduce variety.

#3 I am slow. It is frustrating how little I produce.

These are the big things that frustrate me. So how do victories factor in? Well, a lot of what I'm doing sucks but I do it anyway. It's true I'm slow. It's true sometimes I'd rather sort laundry than stare at the laptop another minute. It's true I write things like "She sits. He stands. He walks away. She sighs." And then I hit the delete key and wipe it out of existence.

My wee victory I will celebrate with you today is... persistence. The short piece I'm writing now I have been working on for years. Years. And yesterday I had a couple of major breakthroughs with it. It's not perfect and it's not done, but it is better than it was this time last week. And if I keep going there's a chance it will be even better next week.

The only thing for sure is if I quit the story won't get any better. And I will have wasted a lot of effort and time.

So future Christy, good luck to you today. Break a leg and finish the damn thing already.