Completed Draft

For the first time in the last four months, I have seen a story through to an ending. With the critical essay requirement, I have been so focused on its completion, in fact, mandated to do so by my advisor, that I have not seen a story through to completion in a long time.

When that much time passes without the tangible result of beginning-middle-end, one begins to worry that there is some sort of block preventing a story from finding its way through to completion. Or, at least First Draft completion. I feel really good about the story. I'm not saying that it is a glimmering piece of prose but I am proud of the fact that there are some bones here that, with the use of my archaeologist revision tools, will be fleshed out to reveal the structure of a larger organism. I can see a thigh bone and maybe the crest of a skull so I know there is something in there, now I just have to sift through the debris and find it.

It is nice to know that I will have something that is at least passable for my next packet. I no longer have to work on completing a story, I just have to work on revision. There is something satisfying about pouring over your work once it is completed. I find myself agonizing so much at the point of creation, trying to make each word belong to the story and then I wind up getting rid of so many of them. It's a funny little bit of my process now that I think about it. I'm so strict with myself when putting one word after the other, but once I have something that I deem "complete" I can excise any one of those words, try on another one, change around their order and I don't feel the same level of anxiety. Weird. One would think that the closer you get towards a true polished draft, the stronger the need to maintain the text.

I think the main thing that influences this for me is that once I come closer to something being "polished" I can recognize the things that don't belong easier. I can smell a stinking adverb or a false emotion and excise it with a greater degree of clarity than when I am trying to birth something full form onto the page.

It's kind of been a long day and I realize that this blog post is becoming a tad rambling and I apologize, but these are the thoughts that are closing out this first segment of my homework night and I wanted to put them here so I could return to the idea later and reflect. Thanks for your patience.