Drafted

In the early hours of this morning, I submitted the next draft of my children's book chapter. It is full of holes in logic. It is bereft of the constant movement that I learned to keep up when I was directing soap scenes. It has a character I love whose heart I have probably not revealed enough yet for anyone else to love her. But I have submitted the chapter (to my editing partners). It is on time. And, as I remind myself, it is just a draft.
 
It is an unbelievably hard thing to think in terms of drafts. We humans like instant results, and drafts just don't fit that. We'd like our work to be publishable the minute it comes out of our creative heads. We'd like someone to snatch it up, and tell us we are brilliant, just for thinking of it. We'd like to be original, and wise, and relevant every time we put pen to paper. There may be people out there who have all of these things happen to them. I am not one if those people.
 
I have to believe this draft will be a step toward something good, and that by writing drafts, I will come upon the things that work, and fit them all together in a chapter that will be more than a draft. In the meantime, I will be developing a healthy respect for the draft. It is a kind of trial run that we don't always get in the other parts of our lives. It is a way of putting it out there without totally putting it out there, and for that, I am grateful.
 
On the next draft, perhaps I can fix the logic part, and the movement part, and the heart part (and likely at least six other parts that come up in the editing process). It doesn't have to be publishable or brilliant yet. It just has to be in a turned-in draft. And I'm happy to report, it's turned in.