It’s not easy being a fiction writer. You walk around all day with the story in your head, imagining scenarios and the wittiest dialogue, crafting perfect snippets of prose and the most dramatic of plot twists, only to have them poof like steam from a boiling pot the second you drop the lid–or open your laptop. I must admit I’ve been struggling with an edit, rewriting scenes to perfection, only to discover that now I’ve totally screwed everything that comes after. When that happens I fall into a funk, as Ihave to rework or trash all what I thought used to work so well. Damn, damn, damn!

Even so, I know I’ll go back tomorrow. I know I’ll get up at the crack of dawn and find my way somehow to the keyboard. For what? I should ask myself. Why do this over and over and over, only perfecting the definition of futile? I guess the answer is what else can I do? I’m a writer–I didn’t choose this profession. The profession chose me. And with practice comes perfection, and too bad I have so much of one and so little of another.

Ah well, back to work. There’s darlings to be sacrificed.