Courage

Visiting family in Minnesota this past weekend, I was delighted when my little nephew presented me with a gift: a winged figurine called “Courage.”  He’s a sweet little guy in preschool who knows me primarily as the aunt who tickles, and I was touched that he thought of me at all, let alone in terms of spontaneously picking out a present for me.  And courage, of all things!  It’s exactly what I need just now.

My latest step of going forward with my writing has involved deleting the last third of my novel.  I came to this realization when I was discussing the book with my editor last week, and now I’m searching forward into new, unexplored territory.  Each book I write seems to involve its own process, and here I am inventing another one.  For now, I’ve physically stepped back from the draft that lives in my computer.  I’m working with pen on paper, writing notes and questions, spreading out the pages around my new courage figurine to look for patterns.

If you’ve followed my blog for any length of time, you’ve probably seen I spend a lot of time not knowing how ideas will come together.  That’s what I’m doing again, so it’s familiar, but this time it’s also new, because these are new ideas that aren’t yet coming together.  That’s progress.