WIPs are like relationships

I just have to say it. I love my book. My current WIP. I think about it all the time. When I lay down at night to read, I wish I was reading my book. I get excited when I think about hitting the keyboard at lunchtime (or the notebook with my pen). I long to look at it. To view my notes. To re-read what I wrote the day before. To tweak it (like kissing I suppose?). To mess around with it (insert lecherous laugh, heh heh heh). To change things here and there, but not too much yet. It's still early in the relationship.

Sure, I'm only about 40 pages in, so I know there's a long way to go and plenty of time for the novelty to wear off, and the relationship to get to that comfortable stage or even to a dreaded tolerating stage (you know, when you tolerate the other person because you've been with them so long and devoted so much of your life to them that to leave them would be silly).

But if the relationship with my WIP is anything like my marriage, I know this book will have and hold me for all the days of my life, 'til death do us part... oh, wait... I mean, I know I will still love it even after I've typed THE END and even after I've revised and rewritten and edited until my fingers (and maybe my eyes) bleed. And even after years and years of living together. I know this because as I grow, so will my book. We will grow together. We will experience things together. We will have adventures together.

Unlike my last project, Evil Never Sleeps. Which, perhaps some day I will go back to. But I look at that book as a relationship with a nasty break up at the end. Or an even nastier divorce. Gah! I stuffed that WIP in a folder called "This Folder Sucks" so I'll never look in there. Not until I'm ready. Not until I'm comfortable. Then perhaps I'll crawl back to it, beg for another shot. Or maybe IT will come to ME and beg ME for another chance. It's possible. You know how those stories can be.

Right now, though, I will relish the love that is my relationship with my WIP. (Imagine hearts dancing around my head, Sims style, when I lay my eyes on my WIP). I will not take my time with my WIP for granted. I will improve it and it will improve me. Together, hand in hand, we will take on the world!

But I'll be damned if my WIP asks me to change.

Happy writing!

Claire L. Fishback

Comments

Unknown said…
bAHA! Love it. :)

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