Growing Pains

Princess Rhiannon stayed home from school today due to those pesky growing pains. Do you remember those? When I was young, I remember those shooting pains going from back to legs, to knees, to thighs and back again. Well, now my poor princess must be growing like a crazy person because she is experiencing those painful growth spurts. In fact, it gets so bad that she won't be able to walk without crying. Now, my princess is dramatic and a fabulous actress, however, this was not acting and my heart cried for her. I let her stay at home and lay back down in bed with a heating pad. I feel like maybe I'm wrong for not pushing her to get up and stretch those legs!

Most careers experience growing pains as well. Those days when you learn so many things that you thought you already knew about your job. Those times when the boss drags you in his/her office and chews your butt for thirty minutes.

I think as writers, we can empathize with growing pains better than most careers. We write this masterpiece that bares our souls, our mysteries and our insecurities. Then we slash it and reword and reshape and print and trash and print again. Each revision is a different shooting pain. Our characters argue and fight with us. Our plots rebel and try to run opposite directions, creating shooting pains in our heads. But after each pain subsides, our story has grown. Our talent has grown. Then when we send it off into the world, the pain can be unreal. Once that has subsided, again, we've grown. We grow with each and every word we write on the page (or screen).

How do you ease the pain of growing?