writing update

Dear WIP*,
I need to talk to you! I feel we've been out of touch although we spend soooooo much time together. You used to be so full of ideas - let's make the main character find a baby you'd say and I'd be thrilled. Or howabout we make one of the cops a prairie boy? And I had ideas too and together we'd wander with the characters in and out of the trouble or fun they'd get into and we'd laugh.

Later on you turned more serious and I guess I did too. We would look at each other and sigh and worry outloud about how we were going to make sure it all worked out in the end and what about our pace and had we left enough clues or maybe too many?

And then you got sullen - or that's how I read it. You got sullen and sulky and turned your back on me and told me I could figure it out for all you cared. You didn't need the aggravation. It was just supposed to be fun and a way for me to learn how to structure plot not this huge opus all of a sudden. And I got scared and then mad. I told you I didn't need you either that I had other wips that needed me and liked the way my mind worked. You harumphed and said I should go hang out with them then. You'd be happy to be put in the drawer and just languish - it was no big deal, lots of wips did that and they were fine. They had hope and you'd like that instead of all this pressure.

You seemed to perk up when we heard back from our first readers and I did too. Little tinkering here and there and you'd go out into the world - be able to turn from a wip into a grown-up novel! And I'd turn from an aspiring writer into a published one! We'd go to New York together and sit around a table at The Algonquin and smoke cheroots and drink martinis. We were made for this!

Then we realized it was really really hard work. I was pushing you and you got sensitive and well here we are.

I woke up this morning with an idea. Let's try to recover our initial excitement. Let's forget about all outcomes and just get into the grace of the work. What d'yasay? Let's remember that Pansy Newton and Mags and the funny young man in the garden need us to live the full lives they want. Lets pitter patter fly atter OK? I really do like you and I really really like playing with you.

Can we have a date this morning? Just you and me in the room - no pressure - just getting to know each other all over again. I'll see you in five minutes. I'm going to slip into something comfortable...
love,
Jan
* Work In Progress