On Process: It's Ok to Set It Down

Ok.

I am going to talk about something uncomfortable.

Something we as writers all do, and no one wants to talk about it.

Are you ready?

Guilt.

Let me explain.

You've been working on a novel, a novella, a sketch, something you love, and all the sudden Sometimes you get an idea for a character. A voice. A scene. A whole world.

This just happened to me.

I was in the middle of working on something for Parallax, my dystopian futuristic story. Ferret, my street wise crime queen, has an ex-fiance, and someone she really loved since childhood, but isn't brave enough to say it.

Alonnnnng comes the idea.

Whoever he is, he's sarcastic. Rude. Playful. He'd be the perfect foil for Ferret - except she already HAS the love tension, and - as much as I trust my audience - they might misinterpret the foe tension for now-we-are-enemies-to-lovers tension.

So I left him out.

Hardest thing to do, but I said no, you have your own story to tell, I know it. I don't know what it is or where it is, but it will come to me.

A younger me would have felt SO guilty leaving him out.

I also would have felt guilty "betraying" one story for another, by putting Parallax down to experiment with his story.

We have all been there.

The inspiration -- it arrives like a gift. Or a whisper. Or a knock on the door you did not know you were waiting for.

And then the guilt sets in.

But I am supposed to be working on the other novel. The one with Thomas. The ghost. The brother. The body that goes nuts.

So you push the new idea away. You close the door. You sit back down at the desk and try to force yourself to care about the draft you were writing yesterday.

And nothing comes.

Or worse — something comes, but it is dead. The sentences are flat. The characters are puppets. The joy is gone.

You feel like a traitor. A failure. A writer who cannot commit.

Here is what I am learning: that guilt is a lie.

It is ok to set a manuscript down.

Not forever. Not because you are quitting. Because you need to breathe. Because the other story is hungry. Because sometimes the best way to love a project is to let it miss you.

Think of an artist.

A good artist sketches all the time. Little drawings in the margins. Quick studies. Faces from the coffee shop. A tree. A hand. A cat who looks like Honey.

Those sketches are not betrayals of the "real" work. They are practice. They are play. They are how the artist stays loose, stays curious, stays alive.

Some of our favorite artists, some of the MOST famous artists, did that.

And guess what?

Writing is the same.

The novel you are "supposed" to be writing is the big canvas. The one in the studio. The one with the weight and the deadline and the expectations.

The new idea — the character who does not fit, the scene that belongs nowhere, the voice that will not stop whispering — that is the sketch.

And sketches are not betrayals. They are fuel.

Here is what I have learned from forcing myself to write:

It does not work.

I have sat at my desk. I have stared at the cursor. I have said: You will finish this scene even if it kills you.

And sometimes, I finish it. But it is bad. Stiff. Resentful. The opposite of inspired.

The characters lay there like they are on a morgue slab.

Or worse, they throw a tantrum in my head.

"I would not wear that!"

"I would not do that!"

The joy is gone. And when the joy is gone, the writing is just labor. And labor, without love, is visible on the page.

Your readers can feel it. And so can you.

It's like trying to swim your way out of quicksand.

So now I am trying something different.

When the new idea comes — the one that does not fit, the one I did not ask for, the one that feels like a distraction — I let it in.

I open a new document. I write down what I can. A scene. A voice. A single line of dialogue. I let it exist.

And then I close it. I go back to the big canvas. And somehow — somehow — the joy is back. The flat sentences have color. The puppets have hearts.

I take all the pressure off!

The sketch did not betray the novel. It fed it.

This is not for everyone.

Some writers need focus. Need to stay in one chair until the draft is done. That is real. That is valid.

But I am not that writer. I am a wanderer. I follow the voice. I chase the curiosity. I put down one manuscript and pick up another, and another, and another.

And I have stopped feeling guilty about it.

Because the manuscripts are not abandoned. They are resting. They are simmering. They are in the drawer, breathing, waiting for me to come back.

And I always come back. Not because I have to. Because I want to. Because the rest made me miss them.

So if you have an idea that does not fit —

Write it down. Give it a page. Let it be a sketch.

You are not betraying your current work. You are trusting it.

Trusting that it will still be there when you come back. Trusting that the new idea will make you a better writer. Trusting that the joy is not a distraction — it is a compass.

So wander. Sketch. Set it down. Pick it up.

That is not failure. That is process.

And it is ok.

One more thing, love. The sketch is not a distraction. It is a conversation with yourself. Listen to it. You might learn something.