Percolate

Sometimes, you think you’re ready for something, you think you’re all set to get the thing, but, actually, you’re not.

You want the thing, but you need more time. You’re still gathering knowledge and confidence too. Readying yourself for success takes time.

You’re on your first draft. Your first envisioning. You go for it, all these ideas spinning in your head—the novel, the website, the business, the life plan. You write it all out, maybe you even complete the project!

And then, it flops. It drops like a penny to the bottom of a fountain, plunk, a small splash, and then, it’s gone.

Somehow though, you know the dream isn’t dead.

Maybe you write a whole manuscript and it doesn’t get picked up by an editor. But you got an agent immediately, and other agents were curious too. And the publishers respected your work, and said things like, “She’s obviously an excellent writer,” and you know you’re looking at a rejection email, so how come you feel so, well, good?

They didn’t laugh at me, I think.

I’m in the arena, I think.

And then you try again. And everything you learned the first time around comes roaring back in a whole new way, ready to take hold of you. You aren’t fumbling this time. You don’t have to google four questions before taking action. You got it this time. You know the plot points and the three-act structure. You know about MailChimp and lead pages and Scrivener. And now, you can take all that knowledge you’ve been storing, that’s been percolating, and simply create.

The first go at it wasn’t a failure. It was a first iteration.

My writing process has always been about percolating. It’s about having an idea that I move toward and then away. That I curl up with and then release. It’s a moving, breathing process.

Hold yourself accountable and be honest with yourself if you’re avoiding. But sometimes, you’re percolating. And every iteration that came before, every abandoned manuscript or failed business plan is as much a part of the published book or successful business that comes later. It’s part of your learning and growing, and percolating.

It’s like a term paper you read about at the beginning of the semester. You know the main points, but you avoid the exact details, the minutia of the work you’re gonna have to do. You don’t look right at it. You party, or sleep, or relax. But then, when it’s time, it comes flowing, because you read the description on the first day of the semester, and you’ve been keeping up on all the work, and you had a bud of an idea, and it was growing all along.

And by the time you sit down to write? Well, you have it.