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
Recently, my wife was helping me by doctoring an image of a young girl in Photoshop. She zoomed in on the image until all we could see were blurred patches of color. Then she lightened the color of three pixels. At that instant, the image was unrecognizable. But when she zoomed back out and we compared the new version with the original, the expression on the girl’s face had changed entirely.
