Book Done Yet? : Embrace the Bad

I always forget how ridiculously bad my raw first drafts are. I was writing absolute dreck Sunday night, and I stopped and thought, “This is too terrible, they’re just talking and talking and talking, and going nowhere.”

Then I remembered: First draft. Just get the damn words on the page. This is not brain surgery, you can come back in and fix it later.

The other thing I keep forgetting is that I don’t know this story until I write it. I have a brief outline and I panic because I don’t know a lot of stuff, and then I write and it shows up. Or I stop and crochet for awhile and it shows up. Or I take a shower and it shows up. It’s a lot of bits and pieces but the important thing is, it keeps showing up. Jo Beverley used to say that writing a story was like driving through fog. You can only see the little bit of the road in front of you, but if you keep going, you’ll get home.

So I’m not looking down, just going slowly through the fog.

And pretending this isn’t really a book.

And loving this ridiculous world and its equally ridiculous characters.

And taking huge comfort in the fact that I really, really want to keep writing.

That’s 42,000 words of crappy first draft done.

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