Sometimes, things don’t turn out the way you plan. I never planned to lose my mom and one of my best friends six weeks apart. I never planned on having difficulty having kids. I never planned on a career in television. My entire life has pretty much been one unexpected event after another, but that’s what makes it exciting, scary and a constant source of surprise.
When I worked in production, I planned my shoots down to the most meticulous detail and my budgets down to the penny. I always had a contingency or Plan B in case something went awry. But the biggest lesson I learned from my time in production was that while plans are necessary, rolling with the punches is vital. You can come up all the grand schemes you want, but when your camera sinks in a boat explosion or you misunderstand and bring poodles to set when your French Director of Photography wanted puddles, not being able to think on the fly will lead you to failure every time. I learned it was better to embrace the unexpected than complain about it. Accept the challenge and act rather than sit cry about it.
Today I finally finished editing the second book in my YA series. I ended up cutting out forty-six pages which was an excruciating, daunting and tedious task. While I never planned on deleting any part of my book when I started writing it, paring down the story has improved it immensely. Choosing which sentences to cut and which ones to keep is a Sophie’s Choice scenario that every writer is dreads. But letting go of my vision of what my book should be in hopes of connecting with my readers is the best (and hardest) thing I can do for my story.
So make your plans, schedule your day, but open your heart to the possibility you might have to fly by the seat of your pants. Everything will either turn out great or you’ll have a good story to tell your friends. And incidentally, we pulled that camera from the bottom of the harbor with the footage intact and we used the dogs in the movie after all and created those puddles with a garden hose. Just like life, everything worked out just as it was meant to.