Feedback on the first draft of my book has begun rolling in, and so far it's very positive! I'm excited to get back to work on it, although I think I might wait until June for that. Once the second draft is ready, I plan to push the book out to a much wider audience, so sit tight! I expect there to be, at the very least, a third draft before it's ready for publishing.
There does come a point, though, where you just have to accept that perfection is unattainable. Although I love writing and always have, the desire for perfection is what kept me from sitting down and starting something significant until this past November. I always told myself that I needed to hold off and read more, that I wasn't quite ready, that I needed to start from the best possible position. The danger in those excuses to put off something is that they are really good reasons! If you want to create something excellent, you do need a good foundation, you do need to be at a point in your life that can support that creative activity, you do need to be in the right frame of mind to begin! I was lucky enough to realize that, no matter how good those reasons were, I couldn't follow them forever; you have to stop somewhere. Even if the journey is more important than the destination, how meaningful is the journey if it doesn't go anywhere?
It's funny that I'm so wrapped up in this idea of perfection with my writing, because I really don't live that ideal in the rest of my life. I do hold myself to a certain standard, but it's far from perfect, and I'm downright inadequate when it comes to things that I can't reasonably relate to one of my core values. For example, I'm pretty bad at getting myself to do chores; even though, intellectually, I understand that it's important, I have no way of connecting those mundane tasks to the image I have of myself, so I put them off whenever possible.
It's true that part of me has always fantasized about escaping from the drudgery of the common life, with its little distractions and inconveniences. That desire to remove myself from the day-to-day hasn't always manifested itself in healthy ways, however. In middle school, I read Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire, which filled my mind with thoughts of what it would be like to become one of the monstrous (yet debonair) denizens of the night. I found myself pondering how my existence would change if suddenly the sun became my nemesis: how would I explain that to my family? Would I still be able to go to school, somehow (night school, maybe)? When would I get to see my friends?
Whose blood would I choose to drink? Whose souls would I damn, so that I wouldn't have to be alone?
Would I really want to spend eternity as a thirteen-year-old, anyway?
And so on. The idea of eternity especially enthralled me, interestingly enough; possibly being able to fly, transform into a bat, or control peoples' minds were all bonuses, certainly, but it was the immortality that always resonated most strongly in my heart. Even at that age, I was all too aware of the ticking clock, modestly paralyzed by the realization that every second I spent on something was a second I would never get back. Thirteen-year-olds should not be asked to decide the most useful way of expending time on earth, but there I was. Vampirism, however unrealistic, offered an out: no more time limit meant no more worrying about wasted time.
Now that I've tacked on another thirteen-year-old's lifespan and then some, and wasted a whole lot of time in the process, I don't fret quite as much about the idea. I can feel that I'm wiser than I was, although I may have spent a bit of the in-between being a fair bit less wise than either thirteen-year-old me or current-me. Part of that wisdom involves making peace with the inevitability of death, as well as determining the things in life that truly give me satisfaction, that aren't just passing fancies, momentary diversions on the road to the grave.
Another part of growing up is learning when to bury a part of yourself that no longer has any place. Today, I can comfortably say that I no longer want to be a vampire. You might joke, but this has nothing to do with Twilight or any other vampire-related concepts that have emerged since an impressionable young me desperately longed for an escape from death. I have built, and am still working on, a life for myself that's too valuable for me to willingly pay the cost of discarding my humanity, thin as it is.
Which isn't to say that I wouldn't make the best of it if somebody decided to turn me into a vampire. But if you gave me that choice today, I know what I would say. I don't need the powers of a nightmare to be special. I will elevate my life to the fantastic, instead of trying to elbow the fantastic into my life.
A hundred thousand threads of possibility!
I could cut my arm off.
I could play violin on the streets in Spain.
I could stare an elephant in the eye.
I could tell you what makes the heart beat, the trees grow, the old ones weep.
I could plant myself, and never move,
Or I could walk and never stop moving.
What will I do? What will any of us do?
We are seeds; where lies the dirt, where falls the water?
How about a werewolf?
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