As I plod away at the mystical process of gathering impressions, images and ideas , tossing them into a cauldron and stirring them until they transform into a new novel, I’m reminded what an act of faith first drafts can be. I console myself with a quote I read  recently:

“I’m writing a first draft and reminding myself that I’m simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build sandcastles.” – Shannon Hale

So that’s what I keep doing, shoveling sand into my Word document, occasionally sifting and sorting to make some sense of it (a parapet here, a turret there), with the hope that every now and then I catch a glimmer of what makes us writer’s write–the chance for real magic, to create a story with compelling characters that readers will believe are real.