A Precious Illusion

Last week, I went on a binge.  (More on this in tomorrow's post.  It gave me a couple ideas for blog posts.)

Maybe three weeks ago, a little more perhaps, several people on Twitter started talking up the SyFy show "Haven."  Its second season was about to premiere.  I was home on a Friday night (shocker, I know) and so I decided to check it out.

The first two episodes of season 2 got me intrigued.  Well, I couldn't just stop there.  I went out and bought season 1 on DVD.  I watched the entire thing in two days.  (In my defense, the season only consisted of 13 episodes.)

Afterward, I watched one of the special features.  It was a sneak peek into the writer's room for season 2.  A bunch of people sitting around a conference table with their laptops out and someone at a white board at the front of the room.  One of the writers said something that was cool.  Maybe I'll have to get a white board for when I'm plotting/world-building.

Essentially it was this: "Nothing is too precious."  (That's the only part I can remember directly.)  After saying that he said they write everything up on the white board.  They erase it and write something else to make it better.

I think this is my problem with Oracles Promise.  I'm too attached to a handful of characters and can't bear to see their stories go away.  Which is why I shelved the project.  I don't have the ability to fix it.  Yet.  Someday I'll get there.  Because every time I open that document and read through the story, looking for how to fix it and make it work, I fall in love with those characters all over again and they become too precious in my mind to fix.

But the truth is, the writers on this TV show have it right.  Nothing is too precious to be tossed out the window in search of the better choice.

And, you know something?  I think this can apply to life sometimes.  (Obviously on a metaphorical level.)