SquarePeg Books

Why Writing is Like a Relationship

Xanadu. Utopia. A place wherein everything is sunshine and roses forever.

Relationships don’t work that way. Your spouse will always do something that pisses you off. You will never understand why you have to repeat the same instruction 5 times a day to your kid for 18 years solid. Your best friend will drop the ball.

That’s okay.

If everything were perfect, there would be no such thing as imagination, because we wouldn’t need it. Imagination is messy. Writing is a creative act, a child of Imagination and absolutely thrilled with the concept of finger painting with mud and blueberry juice on the couch cushions. Which happen to be white because that’s the color your spouse wanted and would accept nothing else.

Tales abound of authors who simply ripped out a clean first draft, called it good, sent it off to a publisher and achieved fame and fortune overnight. While we can all hope that this will someday be us, it’s best to accept the reality we live in. Your work is a mess. My work is a mess,  and we all need to start cleaning before the stain sets in.

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