​Hi! Andi here, IGNITE’s head of editing. I can remember as a child running to my father with a story or school assignment I had written. I would clutch the pages in my hand, my juvenile handwriting bold and blue across the page. Ever confident in my own abilities, I wrote in pen more often than not. I would wave my work under his nose, eagerly anticipating his admiration and praise.

More often than not, he would put down his newspaper and read whatever I handed him, puffing away on his pipe and filling the air with its aromatic smoke. I would sit at his feet, bouncing slightly, inhaling the comforting scents of applewood, tobacco, and Dad, knowing in my heart of hearts that this time, he would say it: “What a wonderful story! Don’t change a thing!”

He never did, of course. First drafts are a chaotic mess and first drafts by 9 year olds are even more so. Instead, he would hum and frown and then point out all the places he would do it differently. As a teenager, we would fight bitterly over high school essays. Convinced of my own brilliance, I would accuse him of never being satisfied and he would in turn accuse me (and rightly so) of lazy writing and a habit of taking shortcuts. Eventually, grudgingly, I would revise my work. But at 9 years old, I avoided conflict and would slink away to tuck the story in a drawer, starting over with a new idea, a new story, a new attempt at getting it exactly right on the first draft.