Mistakes are opportunities dressed up like Freddy Krueger

The read-through is done!

This may not look like lots of pages 

but just to let you know they were double-sided.

I can’t believe how long it took me to get through this though.  I’ve read my drafts before in one day but it took me six days of work, including a full Saturday and one Sunday morning, to get through everything because of all the notes I was making.

The good news? I don’t hate the thing.

The great news? I think I know how to make it better.

Still, despite the good and the great, the best part is that I feel REALLY EXCITED about getting back to work on revisions for the next draft.

None of the changes I’m making are to the story really – not at this point.  Sure there are a few aspects I’ve decided to tell differently but most of all I’m making structural changes and one other big change – which I’ll let you know about in another post.

What have I learned about my writing process after reading this draft? 

Mistakes are the best thing that can happen to you.

Really.

I had to do things wrong to learn how to make them right.

One of my favorite authors, Kristin Cashore, mentioned something about this recently on her blog (bullet point two).   

Mistakes aren’t things to forget.  They’re not things to be embarrassed about.  Mistakes are all you’ve got to grow from. 

They can be your greatest gifts if you let them. 

What’s the best mistake you ever made?  

p.s. Yes I'm so freaking grateful for my writing mistakes (maybe not right away) but this post isn't my new weekly gratitude post.  That one's coming so stay tuned!

Thank you for the days I can waste because If I want to I can

So I may have lied in my last blog post but what you need to know is that I didn't mean to. It's just that, I may have been a little overambitious.  I read for 14 hours last Wednesday and I only got half way through reading my first draft (Bah!).

No, this isn't because I'm a slow reader (which I am) it's because I was making so many notes that it was just taking me a lot longer than expected to get through each page.  Also, life got in the way a bit the rest of the week, as it tends to do, which means it's Monday and I'm still not finished reading.  I will finish this week though. I promise!!!  And then I'll have more to say later.

What I have more to say on now, is two words:  Thank you.  Yes, thank you (and yes I'm a bit italic happy today as you can tell). But really and truly, thank you for reading this blog.  I know it's just the beginning and it's boring and I haven't yet turned to a completely regular blog schedule (though I will!) but my stats are better than 0 and that's pretty darn good.

The other thing I have to say about these two words today (you know, Thank and You) is that what they mean is really important to me.  Gratitude is so important to me in fact that without it I would probably be considering suicide (well not really because I'm scared of dying but you know what I mean).

Gratitude is really what gets us out of bed everyday, happy for the experiences we've had and eager for what's coming next.  If you're grateful for nothing then you may as well be dead.  (Hence the suicide mention).

Seriously though, EVERYONE can be grateful for something, whether it's the obvious things like your health, your breath, the ice cream you had last night for desert (or not so grateful if you're lactose intolerant), your family, or that really friendly gal at the cheese shop who chatted you up for no reason and reminded you that some people really are just nice.  If you can put one foot in front of the other then you have something to be grateful for.

What I'm saying here, albeit kind of randomly, is that I like to think about and talk about the things I'm grateful for and I like to hear what other people are grateful for too.  So I'm going to make this a regular blog thing.  One day a week.  You'll hear about one thing I'm grateful for.  It could have to do with writing. It could have to do with yummy food, or new curtains, or the love in my life, yoga, sunshine, rain, getting an awesome new hair cut, picking out a new sofa or picking my nose (cause let's just face it people, sometimes you gotta do it, you just gotta).

Hopefully, with all these thank yous I'll be blogging, you'll want to comment on what you're grateful for too.  You could have one thing you're grateful for that you'd like to share.  Or heck, if you've got more than one then by gosh darn golly, you just go ahead and share those too. (And if that last statement made you think I live in Texas now instead of LA, I don't.  That's just the way that sentence needed to come out and I'm not even quite sure if that's how a proper Texans would speak anyway).

Now, back to now.  What am I grateful for?  A song, by my new favourite band Foster the People.  The song is called Waste and the reason I'm grateful for it is because whenever I'm feeling like I'm not getting enough done, or I'm a bit unmotivated, this song reminds me that I have the power to waste the day.  Sure there's consequences, there always are, but that doesn't mean I don't have the choice.

OR....I have the power to take today and do with it what I need to so I can be the change I want to see in my world (and by the way that's me ripping off Ghandi, not the song).

So, in other words, I've got a lot of freedom and regardless of where you work or what your life looks like if you live in the West, you probably have a lot of freedom too.

Ain't that something to be grateful for?????

Now go on, what is it you feel like saying thanks for right now?