Writer Versus Himself

Many of the things I do, and the ways I perceive the world, are colored by my training as a psychologist.

Currently, I'm neck-deep in every writer's personal, inner revolution:  editing.

I'm resisting.  Oh, I'm resisting.

My novel was outlined and planned out with a certain degree of logic before I got far in writing (around the 15,000-word mark).  I want certain events to happen, I want certain passages to stay intact...because they make sense that way.

(You can hear me arguing, I imagine.)

But when your thoughtful beta-reader respectfully disagrees, or when your reasonably sane-sounding writing-advice book Hooked, by Les Edgerton, tells you five red flags to avoid at all costs, it's time to stop being defensive and restrain yourself from throwing out the "buts."

But that part belongs there!
But I have a good reason for doing it that way!
But I worked so hard on it, and *I* love it!
But I'm the writer!  Don't I know what's best?

Yep, I've been there, struggling along with the rest of my writer brethren.  I know the feeling of unwillingness to bend to someone else's will.  I know the feeling of total rebellion in the form of apathy:  "Who cares?  I'm doing it my way!"  In my most recent situation, I've been fighting the edict that I must rewrite my first chapter entirely.  I really did plan this chapter a certain way, and it plays a parallel to both the ending and the resolution of the first climactic point...but I need to let go of my defensiveness.

Perhaps, ultimately, it might be better for my novel if I keep the original first chapter.  However, I won't know until I attempt, openly and non-selfishly, to find an alternate beginning.  It could be there.

I was telling myself, "But there's just no other way that beginning, with the same logic and parallels, can come about!"  I realized, of course, that this is ridiculous.  I'm writing fiction.  Thus, there can and will be a new beginning.  I've challenged myself, as a creative writer, to find a solution to the problem and make it work even better than the original solution did.

And I will.

So it's back to the plotting board, as we plotters say.  Push on through, fellow editing-revolutionaries!

Ren D.