Babies and Books

  Well hey there!

  So, this post is going to be kind of odd, but you'll catch on soon enough.

  Recently my mother gave birth to the sixth edition of our family (excluding parents). His name is Ryker and he is four months old.

  Isn't he adorable?!!! I love him to death! He is the smiliest baby I have ever met!! But sadly, he cries, Ryker cries a lot. All babies do, and my brother is no exception. So, at times my Mom is doing things around the house, and needs our help. We are happy to give it up. Though Ryker can be the sweetest thing on earth, he is still a baby and has needs, and when we have him he can cry.

  Rephrase, he will cry.

  Recently I discovered a trick that helps calm him down when he is crying. For some reason, walking down the stairs with him in your arms shushes him. Not walking around, not cradling him. Walking down the stairs. Emphasis on DOWN. To go down the stairs you need to go up the stairs, but Ryker does not enjoy up, he only enjoys down. So, this puts me in a predicament. While I am walking up the stairs he cries, while I am walking down, he is calm. And in the process I am burning in sheer pain due to my case of authortitise which is a disease that occurs when you spend hours upon hours of sitting on you butt typing.

  I came to a realization when I walked up and down and up and down the stairs with maybe ten pounds slung in my arms.

  Writing is a lot like that process.

  Ryker is your book, you love him with your whole heart, you adore him, he makes you smile and laugh, and you would do anything for it/him.

  Going up the stairs are the bad parts of your book. The parts where you feel like shooting something in the face because your book needs something and won't stop crying. Character development, slower pace, better descriptions, less descriptions, and sometimes over all just better writing. You get overwhelmed at all you need to do, at all the flaws you see. And all the while your legs are burning for going up hill.

  However, going down the stairs are the happy days. The parts that just flow easily, your book is at peace and cooperating. It's the days where you pop out four chapters in just twenty four hours! You felt so excited you couldn't stop your hands from swallowing the keyboard.

  It's an on going process, if you stop your book will continue to cry, cry for need of more writing, cry for need of editing, cry for need fixing errors. And do you want your books crying? Crying out for their parents but no response and they end up dying from exhaustion of screeching so hard, and you have to suffer the pain an guilt of knowing you killed your own child for the rest of your life? I thought not...

  The process only ends when you've been published, or when you feel that your book is as good as can be. Your children will have grown and would be able to fend for themselves, and you'll look at them and think all those years filled with crying were worth it.

  And then you pop out more babies! And the process keep on going.

  I guess what I'm trying to say is that, you can't just give up on your writing, just like you can't just give up on a crying baby. You have to keep climbing those stairs to get the sweet climbing down the stairs days, and you have to suffer through the tired feeling your getting. Suffer through detachment. Because in the end, your book will be off to college and married, and all grown up. Savor climbing the stairs.

  Besides, were writers, climbing the stairs is what we live for.