Do-Overs

I tried to re-do a small section of my novel last night and it was disastrous. Thankfully, I had saved my story under a different name before I began redo-ing a character because I managed to wipe out everything but the section I was trying to change. But it had to go…it just wasn’t right. It wasn’t conveying what I was trying to say. I ended up deleting the entire version that I messed up and reverting to my original copy. With some re-work to make that troublesome section stronger, I was able to pick up where I had left off and add a few more thousand words to my count. I’m now up to 29,656 words. Yippee *dancing in my seat.*

But an experience like this, where you really mess up in something you’ve written, made me wonder…

Ever wish you could take something back, do it over, say it the way you should have the first time around so your meaning was perfectly clear?

Have you ever gone back and re-read something and thought, “Oh dear God – that’s not what I meant to say at all!”

In our NaNo life, our imaginary yet so very real world governed by a stupid blue bar above which we must rise every day, a world consumed by characters of our own invention we both love and hate, there is no time to take-it-back. A writer has thirty days to say it the way they should have in the first place. And God forbid one should attempt a do-over. That’s writing suicide, guaranteed failure (well, for me it would be).

Paralleling the writing world in which we can create outcomes is our real life, the one populated with our family and those wonderful friends who mean so much to us. Where our emotions are involved, there are no do-overs; you can’t take something back. Once it’s done, it’s done. You can, however, sincerely apologize and move forward having learned a valuable lesson.

So, dear readers, when you wish you could take that one thing back, re-do it, and say it clearly the first time around, allow yourself a moment to kick yourself in the ass for not thinking it through first. You deserve it, and an extra kick to make sure the lesson really kicks in.

Remember that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach, pinkie-swear with the character you almost made unrecognizable that you won’t do it again and then get back to your story!

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The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes us think more deeply about life, which helps us regain our equilibrium. ~Norbet Platt
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Day 8: I heard that you met your pre-Thanksgiving goal. My bonnet’s off to you, Li’l Sis.