He looked at the papers again. "I want it to. But look at it. It's full of holes. The characters are flat. The dialogue is stiff."

"Of course it is," Clara said with a small smile. "It's a first draft. It’s the skeleton, the bare bones. All that matters right now is that you’re getting it down, getting it out of your head. You can't fix a blank page, Elias. You can only fix what’s already there."

"Still at it, Elias?" she asked, stepping into the room. She glanced at the mess of papers. "It looks like a battlefield in here."