Once in a while I feel like I can write

There are all these quotes, if you look at all for writing quotes, about how everyone has trouble writing and how first drafts are terrible and its only after revision that most people's writing looks like it might actually be publishable. That's generally how I feel as I go about my first draft and I don't worry too much about it because I know that by the time I'm ready to revise I'll have a much better grasp on where the story is going and who these characters are that like to yank me in whatever direction they fancy.

But occasionally I write a line or a snippet of dialogue that I really like that makes me feel like someday I could actually be published. That happened last night. I was kind of blocked on something and writing just to write, just to try to jump start my brain. So most of what I wrote will probably be worked over quite a bit in revision but there are one or two lines that I sort of impressed myself with.

Once in a while I do that. There's one line, which I wrote for a western fanfic, that actually has stuck in my head ever since I wrote it, quite a long time ago. A character, college-educated, was talking about being locked in an iron box in a prison in the South during the Civil War and said "It was like they were paying us back in kind for the burning of Atlanta." I think it's pretty good; you don't have to agree. But writing a line you really like is a real self-esteem booster.