Eye of the Epiphany

Epiphany and crisis day arrives for me at the Faber Writing Academy – Writing A Novel First Draft.  The epiphany?  I now know why writing this manuscript has been such a struggle.  The crisis?  My secondary characters are pawns with names; not one of them is developed enough.  Even if I had a cliché character, I’d have something to rework, but I’ve got nothing.  The enormity of the problem overwhelms me and I wish we’d covered this topic much earlier.  The past two months feel like such a waste.  I shed a few quiet tears on the train home, and ask myself the question, “Why do I torture myself with this writing business?”

The answer comes to me before I even reach for the sweaty, bloodstained towel, before I can watch with horror and guilt as it flies from my hand and lands crumpled in the ring — I have lost many a stoush with the pen in this fashion, but not today. The answer, of course, is that it’s more of a torture not to write than it is to keep writing.

So, I nudge the towel out of the way with my toe and raise my gloved hands, weary and bruised, ready for the umpteenth round.