(my actual backsplash)
My husband and I built our own home. I'll describe the kitchen, and you can guess if you know the era.
Oak cabinets
Black Appliances
White tile countertops
Did you guess 80's? 90's? You're correct! We built the home through most of 1997, and moved in on March 20, 1998.
Not too long ago, I became obsessed with changing the look of our kitchen. Mostly the countertops. The white grout between our tiles was dirty, and dulled the entire room. Granite would be beautiful, but I'm tight-fisted with money, and I'm having a hard time parting with the cash.
One morning I realized that complaining about the dirty grout was silly. Why not just clean the countertops I had? I bleached every grout line, and it brightened the whole room. It's still outdated, but at least it's outdated and clean.
I just needed to do the work.
When I'm frustrated with a manuscript, I feel like it's hopeless and want to trash the whole thing, replacing it with something new and sparkly. But I soon remember that the new manuscript will also reach the same frustrating stage.
In my opinion, we shouldn't have several messy and unpolished pieces of work. We should go the distance. (Need revision help? See the Writer's Knowledge Base search engine on my sidebar) It might even be a good idea to have at least two manuscripts going, in different stages. Maybe one on draft 2, and the other on draft 6. That way when one gets tiresome and frustrating, we can switch to the other.
Yes, some manuscripts will end up being practice books, and that's tough to swallow. But during times of frustration, we can also remember that just because it's white tile with dirty grout now, doesn't mean it can't be pretty granite when we're finished.
We just need to do the work.
Tell me, when you're slogging through revisions, do you ever switch to a shiny new idea? Do you ever feel like the book you're working on will never reach the polish stage? And most importantly, what are your kitchen countertops like? Formica? Tile? Granite? Quartz?