He looked at the papers again. "I want it to. But look at it. It's full of holes. The characters are flat. The dialogue is stiff."
He thought about the advice he’d read once: “The first draft is just you telling yourself the story” . It wasn't meant to be perfect; it was meant to exist. Yet, the weight of his own expectations felt like a physical burden. He kept comparing his messy, incomplete thoughts to the polished masterpieces on his bookshelf.
For weeks, he’d wrestled with the words, crossing them out, tearing pages in half, and starting over. He wanted to capture something profound, something that would resonate with the world. But every time he read what he’d written, it felt hollow, like a ghost of the truth he was trying to tell.