‘Draft’ – What We Call an Unpolished Gem

by maryehopewell

In my early teens I discovered the genius of Director and Animator Miyazaki Hayao, co-founder of Studio Ghibli. I was surprised to come across a film involving a young girl who loves books and realises she wants to write one of her own. The film was called ‘Whisper of the Heart,’ and I can tell you it certainly spoke to mine.

That little girl reminded me so much of myself, struggling with the question of whether she was good enough to be a Writer. She convinces her parents to let her take time away from studying and write for two straight months (a bit like what I did when I was writing ‘The Shizuka Frequency’).

A nice old man from a quaint Antique store that she stumbled upon one day while following a cat she met on a train agrees to read her first draft, and she stands nervously out on the balcony overlooking Tokyo knowing that in the room upstairs, her hard work is being scrutinised. Every Writer has to go through this in the early stages of their careers, and the fear that what they hear from that first reader will be negative is unbearable.

But I don’t think we need to be so afraid of that first opinion. In one of my favourite scenes of the film, the old man joins the little girl on the balcony having read her entire book, and as she fights to hold back the tears he tells her that, like every first work by an artist, it was rough but bursting with promise. Taking her back inside he offers her a dull stone that is cracked in the centre, likening it to her story. Looking closely she sees that inside the crack is a rare and beautiful gem, all she needed to do, the man explains, is draw it out.

(Source: http://flowerowl.com/i-follow/whisper-of-heart-find-your-gem-inside-of-you/)

My mother was the first to read my book, and she was kind enough to say she loved the whole thing. It wasn’t a lie, but I’m sure there were things about it she knew needed a lot of work but didn’t want to say in case it discouraged me. Now, almost a year later, ‘The Shizuka Frequency’ is a hundred times stronger than it once was, and every time I go back to it I find less and less that could be improved.

I think it’s important for a Writer working on their first book to set aside trying to be perfect, watching, as a result, the months drag on to years, and instead try to write – without stopping and correcting and then stopping and correcting again and again – all the way through to the end. It’s much easier to polish a rough stone than to try and be a faultlessly radiant gem from the start.

Happy Writing ^_^