That First Draft
I vanished from Medium for the last few months (not that anyone noticed or cared). Why? I hear the deafening silence of no one asking. Well, I was doing some “real writing,” and by that, I mean I was finishing the first draft of a book I’d been slaving at for over a year. Now, that process is as demanding and stressful as surgery without anesthesia and what with the endless black coffee and crippling self-doubt. I just couldn’t muster up the energy to post on Medium.
Long days spent slaving over the correct positioning of a comma only to be told I’d got it wrong anyway. Hours were consumed trying to figure out if the dialogue should be direct or indirect and what the characters saying anyway. That ‘show don’t tell’, even though the writing is all ‘telling’ and not showing. Does this bit drive the plot and on and on and on?
But hey, the first draft is done, and now the real nightmare begins. I stare at the virtual pages, a tidy mess of words that seemed so brilliant when I first yammered them onto the screen. Now, they mock me with their mediocrity, a half-baked Frankenstein’s monster just neither as clever nor captivating as Shelley’s creation.
Soon, others will lay their judgy eyes on my prosaic prose, picking apart every misplaced comma and clumsy metaphor- like vultures feasting on a carcass. They’ll dissect my darlings with all the finesse of a chainsaw, leaving nothing but the bare bones of my once beautiful story.
I imagine their “track changes,” poised like poisoned arrows, ready to pierce every weakness and flaw. They’ll rip my work to shreds, leaving me to gather the tattered remnants of my ego. It’s like awaiting the arrival of the literary Spanish Inquisition — no one expects it, but it’s always lurking in the shadows, ready to pounce.
I consider hiding the draft by burying it in a digital tomb like some embarrassing high school diary. But I know there’s no escaping the inevitable. My words are fated to be read, judged, and likely found as appealing as a lukewarm cup of gas station coffee. It’s the curse of the writer, the price we pay for daring to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, as the case may be).
So, my teeth are gritted and I’m braced for impact. I’ll need skin thicker than a rhinoceros and a sense of humour darker than a black hole to weather the impending storm. I’ll have to learn to cackle at my own mistakes, to embrace the puns and the pain. After all, what doesn’t kill you makes you stranger (or at least a more jaded writer).
And who knows? Maybe, just maybe, amidst the deluge of criticism and self-doubt, I’ll find a glimmer of hope. A kind word, a nod of appreciation, a sign that my words have managed to penetrate someone’s skull, somewhere. It’s a long shot, but it’s the only thing that keeps me from hurling my laptop out of the window.
So, I take a deep breath and hit the “send” button. My creation is out there now, for better or (more likely) worse. And though I may be plagued by anxiety and haunted by the spectre of judgment, I know that I’ve done what I was meant to do. I’ve written a story and dared to expose it to a cruel world.
And that, my friends, is the true definition of masochism (or insanity, depending on who you ask). So, here’s to the poor, deluded souls who dare to write.
The end. (or is it just the beginning of the torture?)
