Having faith...in myself

So speaking of faith...

The instructor of my writing class approached me on Tuesday and asked if I would be able to bring in something for critique next week, it being our last class. I've had one critique session before this, while most of the class has had at least two. To be honest, a) I didn't realize next week was our last week, and b) I didn't really want to have anything else looked at. It's not because I don't enjoy the critique process. It's actually very helpful. The problem is that I have barely touched my story since the class last saw it.

I've made a lot of excuses, and even started another project in a veiled attempt to avoid my project. A lot of my excuses are logical, rational, and even acceptable...on some level. However, some of it just comes down to the fact that I have no idea how to fix some of the real problems I'm facing with it, and it's frustrating.

But Tuesday night I was given a choice: I could either figure out more ways to avoid my story, or I could actually try to work through some of the problems. Thankfully, I chose the latter.

Other factors involved in this particular push to write are thus:

• My gramma is in the hospital, and I'm trying to visit her when I can
• I am going to Seattle for the weekend, leaving Friday and coming home Sunday evening
• Our drafts to be critiqued are normally due Thursday afternoon (more editing can be done between then and Tuesday)
• I still don't know how to solve some of the major issues that are coming up in my story

So there it is. Not really much time to actually write. I knew that if this was going to happen, Wednesday needed to be a very productive evening. And I was pretty scared that it wouldn't be.

And you know what? Last night was great. I sat down, reviewed the suggestions my classmates had made, and started making whatever changes seemed most helpful. Still feeling a bit stuck, I decided to just move on to the next scene and see where it took me. Well, it took me to a place I was almost afraid to go. Basically, looking at the entire story subjectively, I realized that a major scene needed to be deleted. The problem was that it was the scene that had given me the original idea for the story, and it meant that a lot of what was written would need to be rewritten. But honestly, the story works better this way. It's a major change, but it puts my characters down a more honest path, I think. It was too hard for me to actually delete the stuff, so it's now sitting in a separate word document, just in case. It's out of the way though, and now there's room for me to add new things. And now that it is out of the way, I feel more confident and more motivated to work on this project.

So here's the lesson: I need to not just believe in my writing, but in myself as well. I can solve problems. I do not need to feel defeated when things aren't going as smoothly as I hoped. And while the outside motivation is really helpful, I can also motivate myself. I was made to do this, and knowing that should be all the reassurance I need.