Literary Acrophobia: Standing on the Precipice of Draft Two

“Writing your first draft’s like climbing a mountain,” my friend Ieva said to me today.  “You keep you on pushing yourself and pushing yourself until you get the top.”

“Yeah,” I agreed.  “But then, when you get to the top, YOU HAVE TO LOOK DOWN.”

Ladies and gentlemen, I am about to look down.

Full disclosure: I’m terrified of heights.  Anyone who has ever gone skiing with me knows this. 

For the record: I love skiing.  I adore letting go, abandoning my body to the mercy of wind and gravity – I think it’s one of the closest things humans can do to flying.   But I really, really hate looking down a slope and seeing all the ways I could potentially die.  I’ve worked pretty hard over the years at shutting off that part of my brain. Because I like skiing and I know that I’ve got the skills to handle most terrain and that I always get to the bottom no matter what.  I know that if I trust myself, I’ll be OK.

But sometimes, I look down. 

I mean, you have to look down the mountain *sometimes* if you want to avoid bumping into sharp rocks or people.  And sometimes when I look down, I can’t avoid noticing the steepness of the pitch, how icy the slope is, the fact that I literally am between a rock and a hard place and OH &#!% IS THAT A CLIFF OVER THERE? When this part of my brain wakes up, my body shuts down.  I sit down at the top of the run and I cry messy, snotty tears and my brain fills with visions of myself starving/freezing to death overnight.  (Overactive imagination = great for writing, hazardous for extreme sports.)

Ladies and gentlemen, I am about to look down. 

Last week, I finished a first draft of my novel.  *Cue celebratory dance.*  I decided I owed myself a week off (which was fabulous, if you must know.  I went to hear Neil Gaiman speak, see the RSC production of As You Like It and read a whole lot of Sarah Rees Brennan).  But now the week’s over.  It’s time to turn around and look down the mountain.  It’s time to see whether draft one is a wide open, groomed ski slope that I’ll cruise down into draft two (doubtful) or whether it’s littered with cornices, fallen trees and avalanche debris (more likely).

I’ve never been more petrified in my whole life. 

It's not that I've never finished a first draft before (I have) or that I'm worried this draft is terrible (in fact, I'll be totally honest.  It's pretty craptacular.  But I've never in my life met a first draft that isn't craptacular.  That is just the nature of first drafts).  It's that, for the first time, I’m going to write a second draft.

I have to. 

Not just because I have a deadline to meet for my MA (though that does help put the pressure on).  It’s because this novel is the first where I’ve felt like I’ve been writing what I’ve always been meant to write.  Where the characters mean something to me and I care about the themes and the world is one that is almost as real to me and some days more real than the one that we live in.   I’m emotionally involved in the story in a way I’ve never been before.  Guys, THIS FEELS LIKE THE ONE.  And that makes the mountain I’ve just climbed feel even higher off the ground, even steeper, even more peppered with cornices and crevasses and other unmarked rocks and obstacles.  I’m so, so scared to look down. 

Who knows what I’ll find when I lay my eyes on my first draft again tomorrow? Will I be able to keep my thoughts clear and calm, so that I can shape it into the book I know it wants to be? Or am I going to take one look at it and throw my mittens into the snow and cry?

The last time I found myself paralyzed with fear on a ski slope, my little brother Raphy provided some sage advice: “Just get the @#$^ down!”

I said – because I am oh-so-not-a-drama-queen-at-all-ever – “No! I can’t! I want you to get ski patrol!”

To which he replied, “Yael, what the %^&# do you think ski patrol is going to do? Basically what I’m doing but with less swearing! You know what you’re doing. NOW GET THE &*^% DOWN.” 

It is possible that what motivated me to get down the mountain at that very moment was a strong desire to punch my brother in the face.  However, I’d like to think that some of the other things he said got through to me, too.  Sometimes the only way to deal with fear is to remind yourself that you actually have the capacity to do whatever it is you’re afraid of (even if you’re not sure you do) and %$#@ing do it anyway. 

Ski patrol’s not going to show up and write draft 2 for me.  I’m going to have to brace myself, take a deep breath and look down.  No matter what kind of shape draft 1 is in, I’m going to have to remind myself that I know what I’m doing and get the ^&*$ down.

Easier said than done.   Fear doesn’t disappear just because your little brother pulls out his own special brand of Positive Self Talk.  You don’t stop freaking out just telling yourself not to freak out.  If it worked that way, life would be a far, far calmer place for those of us who have a tendency towards PANIC.  But I think change happens when we’re able to say, “Hey, there’s something more important than my fear right now.”  Like getting down a mountain alive.  Or achieving your goal of being a real live YA author.

So, despite all petrification, I will be looking at draft 1 tomorrow.  I will be turning it into a second and much improved draft this summer.  And I will be getting down this mountain.