Meet Draftsman
Staring at my drafts, which probably won't see daylight.
Hi, ‘tis I.
I am writing this as I am staring at fifty plus ideas I began writing and quickly got bored to finish. I always get started gassed. I type in the first couple hundreds of words. And it seems like the next big thing. Then, I go to bed and wake up the next day to find what was seemingly a great story has deduced to a lifeless stack of words that even I don’t want a second look at. What changed overnight?
‘I can do better,’ that’s my go-to excuse. But the thing is it’s never going to be good enough. So, I’ll start by embracing that I am the draftsman who have nothing but drafts to show for my efforts. I hope that is a universal thing that writers struggle with. And I’ll tell you, the most reassuring response I have managed to get is that people don’t care. It’s you—the writer—that cares. I don’t know if that’s reassuring enough, but it was enough for me to publish my first post on Loline. Readers don’t expect me to come up with the greatest combination of words ever strung together. And I’ve stopped having crippling expectations for everything I do. That’s been truly liberating.
After this, I don’t know where my other posts would come from. Maybe I get to finish one of my drafts, which is unlikely considering the fact that I don’t think they deserve a second chance. Or maybe, I write a new one and publish it before I go to bed. Either way, you’ll see me with my faults and be inspired because imperfections are the way to go about life. (I sounded old right there.)
p.s. Don’t read your drafts more than seven times! It’s a downhill from there.
