The Re-Write -- and my Poetic Side

Even though I'm a writer, I don't often think in similes or metaphors. Maybe because my style is more direct.

But here I am working on what feels like a pretty giant re-write and it's making me think of poetic comparisons. Here are some.

On the hardest days, this manuscript feels like a house that is falling down over my head! My husband advises, "Step back; take a little distance from it." And I say, "Step back? I can't!" Then I tell him about the falling-down-house-feeling. I am, I add, hammering desperately, trying to keep the thing together!

Other days, this manuscript feels more like a badly behaved child. I send it off to school (or in this case to my editor), and I worry that it will get expelled, tossed out for bad behavior!

But on better days (it's early yet, so I can only hope this will be one of those days), this project feels dear and tender, like green shoots emerging from the ground in early March. Of all the fiction projects I have ever worked on, this one comes closest to my own experience.

The thing about writing is this: sometimes it's really tough; sometimes, it goes a little better; and sometimes, well (and this doesn't happen to me too often), it just comes. The trick is staying with it. So I keep hammering away. I keep trying to mother my delinquent. I marvel at those green shoots.