These are the good old days.

One day I'll be telling someone about this part of my life, giving it the romantic spin that we often do our past struggles. But right now it doesn't seem particularly romantic. I thought the words would just fly onto the page, as much preparation as I've done over the past several months on index cards. Or I thought perhaps the first day would be the hardest, and that habit would make it come easier and faster. But it seems to be the reverse. It's an hour til I'm supposed to be asleep and I have 1400 words or so left for the day. And I'm blogging instead of writing because it's going that badly.

I wish I could see this part the way I will see it someday, all misty-eyed while people around me toast my success.

"I remember that first draft," I will say. "It was so awful. I mean, it was really terrible, one of the worst things I've ever written. I don't know why I kept going, but I did. I sank my teeth into it like a bulldog and just refused to let go. I've never been that stubbornly dedicated to a project before or since. Maybe I knew somehow that it would all be worthwhile. Maybe not. But I sat down every day at that computer and cranked out five thousand words. Day in and day out. Five thousand terrible, awkward, nonsensical words that somehow eventually got polished into a novel.

"I was a woman on fire! I was driven, inspired, desperate maybe! It's hard to imagine. It's so easy for me now, I forget the visceral need that was driving me in those days. The roller coaster. I no longer feel the danger, the wild amorphous hope, the gutwrenching awareness of the possibility of failure. It's no longer a highwire act - it's just a job. I miss those days. I really do."