My Story, My Child

Last night I printed out the first draft of my older-young-adult historical-adventure-fantasy (seriously, don't you think I could pick one genre sometime?) so that I can look at it in physical form and mark it up for the changes I want in the second draft.

As page after page (151 single-spaced, to be exact - oy) flew from the printer, I looked at them and shook my head.

This would be so much easier if it was a collaboration, I thought. I could hand off this draft and the few notes I've already sketched out for needed changes to my writing partner, and sit back and let him or her do this next step. Then I could just polish up his/her work for the next draft!


But even as I thought it, I shook my head. Nope. Not my way. This story is my baby, mineminemine. And while there have been times when I've wished I could hand my kids off to someone, like my parents, for a few years and get them back when they are, say, eight or nine, I always knew in my heart that if a fairy godmother waved her wand and gave me that chance, I wouldn't take it. Even though my parents might do a better job, having had more experience, I still need and want to do the raising myself. It's hard work, and not fun a lot of the time, but the reward is so much greater at the end.

And so it is with my stories. The editing process might not be a lot of fun always, and it is loads more work than getting the initial idea down on paper (or computer), but even if I had the chance, I wouldn't hand it off to someone else to do. For better or for worse, this is my story. Someone else might write it better, but in the end, I am the one who has to tell it, in my own way.

Someday I might do a collaboration project with another writer. And if that happens, I am sure it will be its own uniquely rewarding experience. But for now, for this ms at least, I have to go it alone.

Just as knowing that even if I had the chance I wouldn't let someone else raise my kids (though seriously, if we lived close enough, I would NOT mind at all letting Mom and Dad watch them once a week - could I call them my beta parents?) is part of what makes me a parent, so knowing that this is my story, to tell in my own words, even with all the work involved, is part of what makes me a writer.