Alice Buell Lawrence

The catharsis is in the sitting and drafting. For me, at least. It’s the fresh sheet of paper—literal or figurative—and the possibilities that start with a simple sentence. That’s where I can breathe the most as a writer. That’s where the thrill is.

I’ve written three sub-500-word pieces so far this week to practice for the Freewrite 500, each starting with that blank page and the hint of an idea. 500 words is a short form that I’ve never tried before, so it presents its own unique challenges. My plots are never these action-oriented quests or high conflict. But the difficulty in such a short space is having some representation of an obstacle for a character to overcome. I need to edit all three.

Editing is peeling the onion. You go down a layer, and there’s just more onion. I edit some, delete paragraphs, move things around, redraft, and yet it’s never what I would call done. And, like an onion, it makes me want to cry sometimes.

As I type this, I have eight pieces I’ve written in recent weeks open on my desktop, all in some stage or other of editing. When they’re good enough, when they gain my confidence, is still a murky process. I know what I need to do is to start throwing some out of the nest and into the publishing pit, but there’s always one more thing to touch up, one more thing I could do differently, better.

The only real stakes are my ego, of course, but I’m protective of these fragile stories, like they might blow away if someone clutches a draft too loosely.

So I spend yet another weekend peeling the onion. They’re almost ready. Just a little more.