Off Track

     Sometimes you just need to get off track in order to remember why you were there. I took a short break from writing and it turned into a massive editing session.
   
     I found mistakes, repeated so often throughout all of my writing, that I just cannot live with anymore. I know this means I will also run the danger of over-thinking plots and characters but there must be a happy medium there somewhere. I am working to fix more of these repeating issues to cut down on the editing time so I can spend more of it doing the writing I love so much.
   
     All of this has also led me to make a painful decision and stop posting first draft work on my site until I have had a chance to at least go over it and then still guard it like a newborn until I am picking out beta readers. I am not sure what I will be doing with my site as I make these changes but I still plan to use it regularly and finish the story I left hanging. After that, who knows....

Growth in writers

I had a recurring dream. It pointed out that I really should save the prince, or princess, from a bad fate. Even though in my dream the cost kept escalating. Are we inherently teachers? Doomed to live the same grade in school, seeing the same mistakes, helpless to only help the situation in hopes that the person learns. Is the story more importantly if we grow, or that we teach others to grow.
Being a writer, you hope your message rings true and others learn from it. So are we all doomed? Do we learn and move on? Ignoring the plight of the ones falling into that same trap. Saving the world and teaching goes hand in hand with writing. We want our characters to grow like children. Do we hold their hands in rescue?
Charles Colp