Revising the Work In Progress

The idea of wanting to be a writer has been with me always, but I never attempted turning the idea into reality until just after graduation from college. I knew that my writing wasn't the best, as evidenced by every reaction of my last writing teacher to a project. Constructive criticisms, yes, but even others in the class noticed a particular negative slant in his comments toward my stories. So one day, I bought a copy of Writer's Digest hoping it would provide some clues as to how to improve my skills, and the ad for a writers correspondence course seemed to be the perfect solution.

I sent my check and a week or so later received a thick, three-ringed binder, with assignments, writing exercises and a letter from a published horror author who was to be my teacher. How fantastic! Working with someone who's been where I was at and made it. (Granted, I'd never actually heard of the author or read any of her books. I still haven't, as a matter of fact.) Her letter of introduction welcomed me to the course, briefly went over what I could expect, and dove directly into the first exercise. Over the course of six weeks, I began hammering out a story that I'd been playing over in my mind for a few years. I liked the idea, the characters, the monster that I'd created and was excited to get a professional's opinion.

I tore open the envelope with her notes and comments on my first draft, eager to use her advice to improve my story. But her first comment, written in blue letters above my title, stated that no writer ever harms a cat in a story. I'm sure my mouth dropped open as I re-read that comment. Had she never hear of Pet Sematary? The remainder of her comments all took on a negative tone. Maybe that's simply how I interpreted them. My ballooning excitement at becoming a writer quickly deflated. I re-stuffed the story draft in the envelope and shoved it in a drawer, then took the binder to the side year of the house and dumped it in the trash.

Flash forward many years -- MANY years -- and a different story that I wrote, which involves a zombified cat, managed to be accepted for publishing. So I rummaged through my files and found that old story. I've been working on it for the past few weeks, and man, is it awful! I deleted roughly 1500 words, shuffled the order of events, moved the location from Petaluma to Long Beach, even changed the sex of one character. I thought of a new direction for the flow of action and think this might be a good one to submit. Then again, I never truly like anything that I write.

But I didn't change a thing with the cat.