Building sand castles

Writing a book is like building a sand castle. You start with a teeny-tiny grain of an idea and you add other grains (plot, setting, characters) and you mold these grains into this amazing work of art, shaping it with your voice, revising as you go and patting it down to make it solid and sturdy. And then you show people your work, hoping that they’ll like your castle and want to show it to others. But they don’t like your castle as much as you do. Waves of rejection reduce your beloved castle to a smooth small mound that is then kicked by a kid traipsing along the beach. And you shout, “Why do I even bother!” But you love building sand castles so you start a new one – this one farther back from the water and away from the main walking path. You’ve learned from building the last one how to make this one stronger, better. And you’ve come to realize that building the castle is the real reward. Yes, you want to share your castle. Yes, you want other people to love your castle. But if they don’t, you’ve still built something grand out of relatively little. We’re talking teeny-tiny grains here. So build those castles and don’t fear the crashing waves. And remember, sometimes when you least expect it, the sand will catch the sun just right and your castle will sparkle like millions of diamonds.
--This is for the castle builders in all of us, Buffy