You're Ugly, First Draft

First drafts are ugly. Good thing there is revision to make them beautiful. Just repeat until pretty.

You Never Know

The other day my husband was going to go to the driving range. I sweetly suggested that he take our 4-year-old son. He looked at me and said, “I don’t know how that’s going to go.”

“Well I don’t know how the grocery store with three kids is going to go half the time,” I said to him, “but I still do it.”

Needless to say, he took our son to the driving range, and our son loved it. Now my husband takes him as often as he can.

I share this example, because to me it is like writing. One never knows exactly how a story is going to go, but that is ok. Sometimes the story will practically write itself. Sometimes it won’t. Sometimes the ending is easy and the beginning is difficult. Sometimes the title is causing all of the problems. Sometimes you don’t even want to try. But you have to try—even if you don’t know how it is going to go. Because your story, like my son, might just surprise you.