During my period of not-so-much-writing, or The Dry Days (months?) as they shall now be called, I started several projects, but couldn’t push through them.

It’s time to face  what I wrote.

I’ve tried this before with a novel that’s about 85% finished, and haven’t managed to go through the whole manuscript (not the bestest sign in the world). I have a completed first draft I’ve never edited. And then I have a start on another novel, one I thought would catapult me through and break the block.

It did not.

But now that I am feeling interestingly writerly again, the time has arrived to start sifting.

And hope for gold? Who said that? Oh hello there, again, hypothetical reader. It’s been such a long time. You suggest I hope for gold while sifting through?

Snort. In first drafts? As if.

Every writer knows, hypothetical reader, that first drafts are for cutting up and coloring in and hacking apart and stitching back up. You might as well serve your dinner guests raw steak.

What’s that hypothetical reader? It’s so hard to understand you when your mouth is full. That’s an actual dish? Steak tartar? Fine, whatever, the metaphor still stands.

Courage, my friends, wish me courage, as I am about to wade into the writing abyss.

“Me Inside Me,” A Writing 6 Revue, Fridays 7:30 pm Jan. 8-29 at Donny’s Skybox at Second City. Click for Tickets.

Check out  my full-length novels,  Her Cousin Much Removed,  The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management and Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only), and the sequel, Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) which is now available!

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