I used to hate first drafts. I hated them because when you write them, everything you learned not to do slips past your inner editor, supplying you with endless free refills of angsty metaphors and an all-you-can-eat buffet of bad paragraphs. Then your inner editor notices that you’re writing dreck, and she gets all puckery and cuts you off completely. Some call this writer’s block, but you don’t call it that because, as your inner editor has reminded you tartly, “writer’s block” is also a cliche. Nothing makes a writer feel worse than a first draft.
But this time, it helps to have finished a novel already. It’s easier to dismiss the editor and accept Anne Lamott’s permission to write shitty first drafts. It also helps to have finished an outline and synopsis of the new novel, and know that my shitty first draft is the equivalent of wandering around on the wrong street of the right neighborhood.
It’s too early to say if the new novel is going well, but I am enjoying the writing process more than I expected. Every draft is a chance to try a new method, and this time is different, too: even though there’s a plan, the characters still need voices, and the novel still needs to find its tone. I’m trying to write each chapter as it comes, then go back and revise it for scene structure and character development. Mainly I’m trying to have fun and experiment freely, because the inner editor hates fun and is all about the rules.
More than anything else, writing is better than not writing. While researching and outlining, I missed the moments in the shower or in the grocery line when my mind wandered to whatever problem I left unsolved that morning. I missed the sense of losing track of time. I missed listening to my draft, and responding–and I missed watching first drafts turn into second drafts that eventually turned into a novel.
It's just as possible to have fun here...
...as it is to have fun out here.
Tags: miscellany, work in progress, Writing
I’m writing something right now with, for the first time ever, my eye toward revision. I never liked revision before, so I wanted my first draft to be as close as possible to perfect. I never believed I would be interested enough in a story to keep working on it “once I know what happens,” but my current project is different entirely and I plan to be writing and re-writing it several times. It’s fun to be actually looking forward to that!
I like the painting metaphor. Get the wall primed, all of it. But the wall is dirty and the paint is cheap, so it likes to bubble and peel. Get out the scraper and attack all the ugly bubbling spots until gone, paint some more, and more, another layer, another coat, then at last, when the base is sturdy, it’s time to add flourishes of color. We’re painting pictures and our only brush is the words. But it starts with a wide roller so we can cover a lot quickly on the first coat.