1)   Risk. Yes, we talk about risk when we talk about getting started, but you have to keep risking as you go deeper. You have to risk more than you thought you had to give. You have to risk seeing what works and what doesn’t work. You have to risk rethinking what you’ve done and finding out what you need to do next.

2)   Courage. This one could also be called “Waste,” because at its worst, it feels like waste when you have to jettison lots of words and even beloved, favorite lines, scenes and characters because they do not serve the story. In fact, you have to reconceive of the whole process of writing a book: the words,  typed or scrawled, are practice, are the rehearsal or the scrimmage. It is easy to think that the ideal is to bring all that work forward to the final performance but in fact you want the polished draft to appear effortless. You hide the work and find another way to be proud of the necessary “waste” that brought you to what actually works.

3)   Release. This can be the hardest of all. A book is by definition a flawed creature, sprawling, gorgeous and deeply imperfect. Like, say, a family. Like, say, a human being. You work longer and harder than you ever imagined on it. You tax your creativity and your courage. You begin again and again, each time sustained by what’s come before. You are further along on your journey with each new start. But in the end, you have to finish. “A work of art is never finished, merely abandoned,” has been credited to various sources (Leonardo di Vinci, E.M. Forster) but belongs to everyone who has let go. Sent the work out to be, as Angie named her blog, “Public, Not Perfect.” Terrifying. Exhilarating.

You are living the creative life. Risk, courage and release. Then you go back and start over again . . .