The next morning both kids stood at the top of the stairs in astonishment. The gates were really gone!
"Where's the gate?" my two-year-old asked.
"Daddy took it to work. He needs it there," my son said with authority. Sure, that made sense.
These symbols of security had been removed from their lives, and the transition wasn't easy. It was harder than changing my son from a crib to a double bed, getting rid of the pacifier, losing the afternoon nap. They continue--five days into the mysterious gate disapperance--to ask, "Where's the gate, Mommy?"
And so I realize, our first manuscript is a little like this gate. It becomes our security, always there to fall back on. Like my son, we try to fix it, even though it is large and unweildy. We go at it from every angle, refusing to give up on its viability.
Eventually, we must admit we don't need that old MS anymore. We have grown beyond it. We have created better work since it and will create better work because of it. Maybe you shouldn't chuck it like my husband and I did with the baby gates, but perhaps there is a deeper hole than your reachable desk drawer. That is usable space, after all.
Do you have a security MS?
Tomorrow, author T.H.E. Hill will be here with his book, Voices Under Berlin. And today's the last day to vote in the poll! Let your voice be heard...
That is such an awesome post. Not just the first manuscript that we have grown beyond, there are so many things we cling onto long after we have outgrown them.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reminder.
~ Rayna
I truly hope you didn't chuck the baby gates but reused them in some fashion. Or donate them to charity...or even put them in the garage for puppy training later...
ReplyDeleteLike an old baby gate, an old manuscript can be recycled or reused in different ways, if you care to look.
My safety ms. sat in my drawer for however how long before I realized I needed one of the characters from it to put in my newer WIP. It was a win-win all the way around and worked out that I got to re-use/recycle, and still had one of my best characters in a new work.
I'll always have a soft spot for my first ms.
ReplyDeleteI remember writing my first book, but I can't remember what it was about now. My first middle grade manuscript is something very special to me, I could tell almost every line from memory.
ReplyDeleteGreat post Michele! I have a whole manuscript graveyard of WIPs that don't deserve to be seen, but got me to the point I'm at now!
ReplyDeleteAm tweeting this one....
Elizabeth
Mystery Writing is Murder
i was told a story whereby my sister fell down the stairs and was slumped into the gate at the bottom. I always thought to myself - why on earth did my mum and dad have only one gate up - kinda defeats the point. On a side note, my sister survived - just a few bruises so mum mum says.
ReplyDeleteSimon
www.screeninsight.com
Well, since I've only written two full MSs, they are probably both still gates for me. Only time will tell.
ReplyDeleteLove the analogy though. :)
i think each of my manuscripts is are security manuscript and probably will keep beeing so until i actually get something published. Or so i tell myself.
ReplyDeleteI just wish I had a manuscript! Good or bad! Maybe this summer?
ReplyDeleteThis is SUCH an important topic. AND the biggest hurdle for many new authors to reach. I've been trying to find a way to share this information with come of my critique group friends... and so glad to have your analogy. Would you mind if I link back to your post for group? Thanks! and well said!
ReplyDeleteNo, but I do have a hole in my pocket - LOL!
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love this analogy - so original!! :-)
ReplyDeleteI have a junkyard where I put chapters and such I wrote but never used. Sometimes I visit the junkyard and pull a part or two, clean them up, and insert where necessary.
ReplyDeleteStephen Tremp
Interesting analogy! It's like the first page of a journal for me. The first page is so defining, and sometimes embarrassing upon later glance that I've started skipping the first page of my new journals just to ease up on my inner critic. If only our first drafts and manuscripts could be so conveniently and brilliantly blank. But that "first" is kind of the point, or we wouldn't be writers. We need a "first" so we can move onto others.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I have some old poetry that I fall back on as my 'good old stuff,' but I know I've moved on. I totally understand the metaphor here.
ReplyDeleteIt would be weird to read my original manuscript of CassaStar. I wrote it YEARS ago!
ReplyDeleteYup - I've got a gate.. oops ms hiding in a drawer. I learned a lot from it, but it's so overwritten it makes me shudder :) Thankfully I wrote it only for me because I wanted to try it out!
ReplyDeleteOh, yes -- I have two security manuscripts. I know I can fix them, someday, if I try. But first, I have the two newer novels to revise and submit...and two more ideas in the works. I'll never throw those first two away.
ReplyDelete