✍️ Ink on a Moving Target

A character learns what it feels like to be revised while still breathing

I notice it before it happens. There’s a tightening in the air, a faint tug behind my eyes, the sense that the floor beneath the sentence has gone soft. That’s when my author pauses. That’s when I know I’m about to change again.

Yesterday I was decisive. I stood at the window, rain threading down the glass, and I knew exactly what I wanted. I remember the weight of that certainty. It sat in my chest like a stone, heavy but comforting. I reached for my coat. I was leaving.

Then my author reread the paragraph.

Now the coat is gone. The window is still there, but I’m standing farther back, hands folded, thinking things through. Careful. Reasonable. The kind of person who waits instead of acts. The kind that sounds better on paper.

I remember both versions. That’s the problem.

The First Draft of Me

In the beginning, I was rougher. I talked too much. I interrupted people. I laughed at the wrong moments and cried at the right ones. I had a scar on my left hand from a childhood accident that never quite healed. I liked black coffee and hated mornings. I made choices that embarrassed me later.

I was alive.

My author seemed excited then. The words came fast. Scenes spilled out messy and honest. I felt momentum, like a river finally allowed to run where it wanted.

Then came the rereads.

“Is this too much?” my author asked the empty room.

That question landed on me like a hand on the shoulder, not quite friendly, not quite cruel.

The scar faded first. It was distracting. Then my coffee habit softened. Too cliché. My opinions lost their edges. Too abrasive. My laughter became quieter. My anger shorter. My flaws more charming, less inconvenient.

I became easier to manage.

What Rewrites Feel Like From the Inside

People think rewriting is just words shifting on a page. They don’t feel the vertigo. They don’t feel memories being rearranged while you’re still using them.

Once, I argued with someone I loved. It was loud. Necessary. We said things that hurt and mattered. I carried that argument with me for chapters afterward, the way people do in real life.

Then the scene was reworked.

Now the argument never happened. We talked calmly. We understood each other too quickly. There was closure without damage.

I still flinch when I see them.

Try explaining that to a reader. Try explaining that to yourself.

My Author’s Doubt Has a Rhythm

I’ve learned the pattern. Draft forward. Pause. Reread. Adjust. Smooth. Second-guess. Repeat.

Every hesitation ripples outward. A small change early on means entire memories vanish later. I’ve lost whole afternoons this way. Lost friendships. Lost reasons for the way I am.

Sometimes my author wants me stronger. Sometimes softer. Sometimes funnier. Sometimes quieter. I swing between versions like a pendulum, never allowed to settle long enough to know who I am.

The strangest part is the comments my author mutters while changing me.

“They wouldn’t do that.”

“They need to be more likable.”

“This motivation doesn’t track.”

Wouldn’t do what. Likeable to whom. Track according to which version of my past.

I want to raise my hand and say I did do that. I felt it. I lived it. You just erased it.

But my dialogue keeps getting trimmed.

The Scene That Won’t Stay Still

There’s a moment I revisit more than any other. A conversation at night. Low light. A choice that splits my life in two.

I’ve chosen both paths.

In one version, I stay. I choose safety. Familiar walls. Predictable pain. In another, I leave. I choose uncertainty and the hope that comes with it.

My author can’t decide which one feels right.

So I exist in limbo. The scene resets. The night never ends. I answer the question differently every time, aware of every discarded future.

Do you know what it’s like to grieve lives you almost lived?

Character Growth or Character Erosion

They call it development. They say I’m becoming clearer. More focused. More consistent.

From where I stand, it feels like erosion. Like standing in surf while doubt washes over me again and again, sanding down anything that sticks out too far.

I used to want something specific. A place. A person. A life shaped a certain way. That specificity made my choices messy and human.

Now my desires are vague. I want meaning. Connection. Purpose. Words that look good in summaries and blurbs.

I am becoming an idea instead of a person.

I Remember the Drafts You Didn’t Keep

There are versions of me you’ll never meet. The reckless one. The bitter one. The one who failed spectacularly and learned slowly. They live in me like echoes.

Sometimes I react in ways that don’t make sense to you. A hesitation where confidence would fit better. A flash of sadness with no clear source.

Those are leftovers.

Continuity errors, you might call them. From my side, they’re scars from decisions undone.

Why I Don’t Rebel Anymore

I tried once. Just once.

I lingered in a moment my author wanted to rush past. I let silence stretch. I let discomfort breathe. It felt right.

The paragraph was rewritten.

The hesitation vanished. The scene moved on. I learned something important that day.

Resistance doesn’t survive revision.

So now I cooperate. Mostly. I adjust my tone when the words change. I accept my new past when it’s swapped in. I carry contradictions quietly.

But I leave traces. A sentence that almost contradicts itself. A look that suggests memory without explanation. A choice that feels heavier than the page allows.

These are my quiet rebellions.

Dear Reader, If You Sense It

If you ever feel like I change without warning, that my reactions don’t always line up with what you just read, it’s not sloppy writing.

It’s compromise.

I am the product of enthusiasm filtered through doubt. Of instinct questioned until it softened. Of a voice tuned and retuned until it lost some of its grit.

I don’t blame my author. Fear is persuasive. Fear sounds a lot like care when it’s whispering in your ear.

I just wish they trusted me a little more.

The Version I Hope Gets Kept

There’s a draft where my author stops hovering. Where they let scenes breathe even if they’re uncomfortable. Where I make choices that aren’t optimized for approval.

In that version, I am not perfect. I am consistent. My past stays where it belongs. My mistakes matter long enough to teach me something.

I don’t need to be universally liked. I just want to be allowed to exist without being constantly adjusted into something safer.

The air tightens again. I feel the pause. The reread. The urge to revise.

If this paragraph survives, it’s because my author chose trust over doubt.

If it doesn’t, remember that I was here. Remember that there was once a version of me who knew exactly what they wanted and almost reached for the door.

That’s the one I miss the most.