"I made a desk
Or rather
A desk made me.
While toying
Tossing
Wrestling ideas
Wrangling plots
Characters
Motives
Swirling the story
Letting it
Present
New patterns
Pieces,
And possibilities
The mundane
Instructions
Emptied me
Out.
Step by step
I trickled aside
And let
The story
Fall
In to place.
I made a desk
Or rather
A desk made me." ~ Olivia J. Herrell
My New Sauder Desk |
Thank you, Charlotte Levine Gruber*. Thank you for reading Blessed Are the Peace
Makers to the end, all ninety-nine thousand, seven hundred and forty eight
words. You are my hero.
Thank you for liking the story, characters, flow.
You were kind. And excited. And honest. As my first beta
reader, you rocked it.
Thank you.
As a result of your much-needed input I have a prologue to
absorb, characters to assimilate, others to flesh out, conflicts to stir, gaps
to fill, future-tones to invoke, lines to draw, motives to manage.
Time for rewrite.
Pausing to let the “aha” break over me, I laugh just a
little. I now understand first-hand the importance of a second reader. Someone not
the author. What was clear to me as I wrote, wasn’t so crystal to my reader. Huh. Imagine
that.
Thank you Charlotte*.
Revised scenarios play in my head and after back-aching hours, I have a desk, complete with drawer and two cubbys.
Today I made a desk, and in the doing, the desk made me.
~ Olivia J. Herrell
P.S. In case you were curious, I did unplug on vacation to a limited extent, leaving the laptop at home and using the iPhone sparingly. Considering AT&T is my carrier and we tromped around Oregon, that wasn't difficult.
* Charlotte Levine Gruber is the author of CODE OF SILENCE. Click here to read more.