Big Changes

So, Tuesday morning The Other One cut off my hair with a pair of scissors. A lot of it. Roughly 18 inches.

In her defense, this was preplanned, and I'm happy with the result. Still, it's a big change.

Embarrassing confession: The first time she came at me with the scissors, I screamed and ran into a corner -- notably with my hair to the wall to protect it. She carefully set the scissors down and said we'd try again when I was feeling better. This has brought her much amusement. In my defense, The Other One has always had a Use It and Lose It policy towards my hair. If it hit her, she was coming after it with scissors. She never actually cut it off, but there are some associations in my mind, apparently.

Eventually, my hair was considerably shorter, my old hair was laying neatly contained on my counter, and I was jumping up and down to see how my shorter hair bounced. (I promise I'm a reasonable person most of the time.)

The moral of this story is simple: Change is scary. (I know, no one's said that before.) Although I've been thinking about short hair for a while now (read: months and months), but actually gearing up to do it shocked me and took some adjusting.

Now I'm gonna circle this one back to writing, because I like to pretend that's what this blog is really about.

You ever look at an MS you need to edit and think about running away because oh my goshness you just have to make so many huge changes and it's going to be so hard and different? Ever get scared about a new idea, because it's just so different from everything you've ever done before and you just know it's going to be hard and messy? Ever stepped away from one set of characters to realize you've been with them so long you're not sure if you can write other characters half so well?

Growing as a writer develops messy and unpleasant things like thought and diligence and work. Sometimes it even involves changing our ideas, changing our stories and characters, or even changing in ourselves. But we have to do it if we ever want to be better, to be the best writers we can be. Yes, change is scary. Yes, new stuff is scary. But, yes, it is also totally worth it.

Any big changes on your end lately?