Day 32: An Epiphany

Epiphany: according to Collins Dictionary, any moment of great or sudden revelation

I had an epiphany today. More like a BFO (Blinding flash of the obvious). TRUST your instincts, David. You are usually right. For a week I seriously questioned my vision of a particular scene in my book, forced to edit it before it had completely come together in my mind (I'm a firm believer that things have to boil away in that pot I call a mind) and some negative comments were made about it by someone I gave too much power to over my writing. I had questioned the need to have to fully edit a section of a longer work early in the creative process and also the idea of critquing a work before it is complete in first draft. Too many cooks spoil the broth type of thing. Today during a talk, the speaker confirmed my believes by questioning the need to polish work not yet ready to be polished because of course imposed deadlines and questioned whether we should be showing any of our work until it is complete and of a high standard. He felt it was an invitation to hijack the creative process or as I now call it, book by committee.

What I learn was that I need to trust my instincts. Don't give too much control or power to others as they simply offer an opinion and a preference. They are not the definitive writing god. The only writing god for your work is you. Any decisions about changes ultimately lie with you. Write the book that you want to write and none other.

Its interesting that I have begun to believe that critiquing of longer works as a single chapter ends up critiquing it like a short story. These are different animals. My character can grow and change over several chapters and not all characters are created equally. I learned that another character can be viewed your protagonist/ narrator a certain way and the conveyance of that character can be biased and possibly untrue as it is a matter of one character's perception of the other. You've got to look at your critiques with an eye to where the critiquer is coming from. Do they have a short story bias? But I'm babbling. Its your story. Trust your vision. Trust your instincts.