I just read a most amazing book by ANNIE DILLARD called The Writing Life.

Annie has a divine prose, and this little gem is full of wonderful tidbits about writing and the realities of a writer’s life – which is not that glamorous. Being in a little room. Lost in your own little world. Not aware that outside, outside of your window, life is happening.

I have been struggling with my Work In Progress, and I read something in that very wonderful book which struck a chord. Many things did, actually, but one in particular the most.

She said it in lovelier words, but here is what I quivered to.

A book, a work in progress, still not even a book, a could-be book, needs your TLC. You, master, creator, must give it.

This amazing author compared the work to a sick patient, and says how rather than write the book, sometimes an author just sits with it, holds its hand, day after day sometimes without any hope, and prays it will be able to stand on its own some day. 

That’s exactly what I’m doing with my WIP now. Holding it’s hand and . . . well, I’m actually staring at it as though I wrote it all in Greek.

But now I hope if I pull out my emotional reserves and give it some more TLC, will please please please start to be kind to me?