Pacifier Withdrawal Syndrome

I am pretty sure my grandson is suffering from pacifier withdrawal syndrome. I also believe that there is a need for a support group—not for the little ones, but for the parents and grandparents. His pacifier has always been the one constant in his life, and now that it is time to give it up, he hasn’t found a new constant. He is more irritable than he has ever been and doesn’t seem to know how to cope with his loss. While he isn’t old enough to understand, being weaned from his pacifier is for his own good.

At one time or another, every writer has created a character, or a scene, or even a sub-plot that we just absolutely love. We spend whatever time is necessary to make it perfect and imagine our readers are going to be as enamored with it as we are. We could not be more certain that our loving creation will be the most talked about part of our story.

Then, we actually try to use it in our story. Discovering that we need to get rid of something we have taken great pains to create is very disheartening.

I have created characters that just begged to be written about. When the time came, however, to put them in a story, they simply did not work. I can admit that if I hadn’t have been so stubborn, I could have made changes that would have fixed the problem. Unfortunately (or so I thought,) it wouldn’t have been the character I had worked so hard on to bring to life. For that reason, I have a small village worth of characters and their sub-plots that will probably never see the light of day.

Unlike my grandson, I know that you have to let things go on occasion that you really don’t want to. By getting rid of what is hampering the story or trying to divert it from its natural ending, I have ended up with a story better than I could have expected.

Just thought I would jot this down.