Those who read my column regularly know I am madly working to finish “Dropnauts: Redemption Book One” in time for PitchWars. I just got my editor notes back on Thursday, and now have about two weeks to whip the whole thing into shape.
The news from the editor is mixed. He functioned as my beta reader this time around as the time table was too compressed to manage both, so the manuscript was at a bit rougher stage than I would have preferred.
He loved the story! That alone made me dance and throw my hands in the air like a five year old.
I made him both rage and cry, which is a good sign. But there are a few character and plot flaws that run deep, and that will be a challenge to correct in the short time frame I have before I need to turn it in.
I will make it work.
This is the moment I have waited for, for so long. The chance to push myself and my work to another level, to roll the dice and see where it all leads.
No one said this whole writing gig would be easy.
Still, no one said it would be this hard, either.
I should feel lost. Defeated. Brought back down to Earth by the weight of the task ahead of me and the short time frame. It’s not like I have scads of free time to deal with this, and it will be a challenge at every level.
And in the end, who the hell really knows how it will go? Maybe I’ll wrap it up and turn it in, and things go pop-boom-fizzle and nothing new happens. But maybe, just maybe, they go pop-boom-bang instead.
Strangely, against all my usual imposter-syndrome inclinations, I feel good about this. Charged up. Ready to tackle this new mountain.
I feel a strange sense of my own power, an unlikely and unusual confidence in my ability to pull this off that’s a bit unnerving, to be honest.
My inner critic has left the building.
I trust myself, my writing, my instincts. I’m fired up and ready to forge ahead, one step at a time, until this thing is done. It’s full-immersion time.
No more doubts, no more hesitation.
I’ve got this.
To my writer friends – have you ever had a moment of coming into your own, of dropping the uncertainty and owning your own ability?