Be Brave, My Friend
Be scared, be however you feel, but keep going
I’m in the middle of it.
I’m writing this piece as much for myself as the reader.
Here’s what happened. Writing work was going well. I exulted in laying down good pages and the way the story was moving along.
Then, Kenny showed up. He confronted the main character right on the street, in broad daylight. If it had been night, things would have gone very differently. He is not a good person. He and the dog have history. His plans do not include an earnest do-gooder and a confused animal.
I typed the scene fast, breathless, hoping the protagonist would get away. She did — brilliantly, seamlessly introducing an important character and setting.
It wasn’t going to be that easy for her, however. Kenny yelled some horrible, real, awful facts about the dog, things that she will never be able to forget about who he was being trained to be, what he was being forced to do.
I hate that Kenny did that. I hate knowing what I do — and yet. And yet, this shocking and unexpected meeting sets up the next scene and the one after that and the one after that, fast and logical and better-fitting than ever before.
I wish I could hate you for it, Kenny, for not playing your role correctly and at the same time I am grateful that you stepped in when you did, ratcheting up the tension and making it clear how desperate and dire the stakes are.
So, here I am, revising and drafting and all that I carefully arranged and ordered has been blown to bits. My Inner Editor has left the building. Let me know when you’re done making a mess she called over her shoulder.
Be brave, keep going. Let go of the way you thought things were going to be. Let them be how they are.
Take the gift from this off-balance and evil character and use it advises the bossy character who insisted that I tell her story — and she has a new beginning to the story, too.
Being brave today meant laying down the scene that I never imagined before, inserting it and admitting that it’s important. It meant writing down threats and ugliness from that smiling criminal with his perfect white teeth. It also meant drafting several new beginnings when I liked the one I already had.
The new work is powerful, smart, and terrible. It means that everything I’ve done up until now needs lots more work. Scenes will be cut and that appealing walk-on character may have to go, too.
I was doing so well up until now.
Except that I wasn’t. Not really. And now I know it for real and for true because I tried the ideas and they worked better.
I like to think myself intrepid. I like to remember the times I’ve challenged and insisted and taken risks and things have worked out spectacularly well. All the other times? I hum really loud with my fingers in my ears, talk serious and smart words about learning from failure, and then turning up the music really loud in my headphones so I can write this new stuff without mourning what I thought was good.
Be brave, me. Be brave all of you out there with your own Kenny characters, plots that go sideways and words that don’t work.
Be brave and keep on going.
We’re heading to a better place — and we’re together.
Scared? Oh, yes, but together, holding virtual hands in the dark, heading toward the light.
