Molehills and elephants.

I started out working on a small edit of a project I’ve been bringing to life for a couple years. The edit was just going to be some minor structural changes. Move a paragraph here. A chapter there. Nothing too huge.

But then the structure changed completely. So the structural edit grew, a lot. Along with the new structure there needed to be new content to hang the stories on the structure.

Next I realized the tense of some of the passages was not right. I started changing those as I moved the structure around.

I also found some of the things I had written read flat – there was no emotion, no feelings, no color. So while I’m moving things, hanging things, and changing tenses I figured why not also add some color.

What started as a mole hill has grown to a mountain.

There is an elephant in the room. It needs to be eaten.

How do you eat an elephant?

One bite at a time.

But… what if I’m trying to take three bites at a time…

If I were my own best friend I would still remind myself to take one bite at a time. The elephant will slowly shrink. The mountain will slowly erode to the mole hill. The work will get done.

It may not be on the timeline I have given myself. It may take longer because in reality I am trying to eat three elephants right now, not just one. A structural edit, content revisions, and tense changes. So perhaps I miss the deadline… so what? The work will get done. The project will move forward. One step at a time. Be thankful for all the elephants! They are a sign of progress.

Are you busy eating any elephants?