This past week, performing a psychoanalysis on my writing has taken its nickels and laid them on the counter. At a writing critique group, a lovely woman paid for M., my picturebook main character, to see Lucy.  She essentially gave me the outline for a revision centered on fulfilling M’s needs and which symbols best expressed the emotional cores along the therapeutic process (I mean narrative).

Then, later this week, I happily handed over the weighty coin myself for GJ, a stalled project. “Lucy” told me that right now, my main character’s issues are my issues. If I try to write them out, they will have the essence of 25-year-old woman about them, not 13-year-old girl. Further, until I fully understand myself, I will never gain the perspective I’ll need to help GJ see them through.

But this post http://www.slate.com/id/2260395/ helped me realize the path I am starting on by not writing. Maybe some distance is too much distance. Maybe some distance is just some excuse. Maybe I need to see Lucy!

Have you ever taken your writings to Lucy? Do you ever take her prescriptions? Let me know!