"You sit down and you do it, and you do it, and you do it, until you have learned to do it." ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

This is what synopsis writing has been for me, in a step-by-step format:

1) Open synopsis document

2) Stare at synopsis document

3) Print synopsis

4) Scribble on it with a red pen. Want to jab red pen through lines I know aren't working and I can't figure out how to make them work.

5) Decide it is all crap. Open notebook & start scribbling new synopsis.

6) Type up new version of synopsis.

7) Go back to step 2 and repeat.

When I was younger and didn't consider writing any more important than any of the other activities that filled my days, I always wanted to find "my thing," the thing I could just do. I had this strange idea that if I could do something well the first time, if everything just clicked when I tried to do it, that was what I was supposed to do with my life.

Well, since I'm not blogging about the art of stained glass right now, you've probably figured out that my life didn't exactly work out like that. I figured out that it wasn't about what I could "just do," it was about what I really wanted to put the time into learning how to do well.

Synopsis writing? Yeah, it was not part of my initial "be a writer" plan. But now that I know that a synopsis is a somewhat necessary evil, I'm working on it. I want it to be good. Hell, I want it to be great; I want someone to read it and say "I want that book now, gimme gimme gimme."

Which means I'm back on step four, even though I'm sick of trying to find the perfect two-word phrase to describe Mordecai, or the best way to make Arion sound more wounded than brat-like. Do I wish it came more easily to me? Oh, youbetcha. But since it doesn't, here I am, with the zillionth draft of my synopsis, red pen in hand.

And so, I do it again.

But, um, can we please try and make this one of the last agains? *prays*

For those of you also on the non-pro LJ, there's a new beta call up for help kicking me in the pants.