The story is there. Already.

It’s in the mind. It’s composed of memories and relationships, small pieces of information from earth, and deep dreams which probe the vastness of the unknown.

The story is already created.

It simply needs to be released. It needs to be formulated in a way that will make sense to everyone. It needs to be sculpted out of the mind.

Creativity is taking the building blocks of “know” and marrying them to the unknown in unique and previously not-thought-of before ways.

This is why a draft is a draft. It has yet to be refined. It has yet to be feel the full weight of the writer’s chisel.

Each character wants to run away with the story. Each character tries to assert themselves in a literary coup which will shift the story line in one’s favor.

But the writer must be steady.

Each setting wants to take up residence in the whole of the story. It want to be the all-in-all background. It wants to stake claim to the glory. It wants to be remembered.

But the writer must be patient.

Each word and phrase and paragraph wants to plant its roots deep on the page as an immovable font which becomes an indelible part of the story. Congruent or not.

But the writer must be ruthless.

The writer must reign in the characters and choose the one who honors the most favored literary path.

The writer much focus the setting which best optimizes the character and the story.

The writer must cut and chip and scourge the manuscript of the words and phrases which don’t add life – as beautiful as they may be – as poetic as they may sound. Poetry in the wrong place becomes dead prose.

A writer must be a ruthless sculptor – focused intently on the story inside.

Narrow. Tight. Pull. Twinge.

With steadiness, patience, and ruthlessness, the right story will emerge.