Feeling vs. Thinking in Writing

I know, I know! A Step-by-Step Guide to Publishing with Createspace for Intelligent People (Part 2) was supposed to be posted today. But … too lazy and too enthused about this new idea (which, disclaimer, I got from the book Writing With Power by Peter Elbow. I’ve only read the first chapter, but I’m smart enough to draw a whole blog post from it. *nods*)!

Today we’re going to be talking about feeling and thinking in writing.

Both of these are extremely important. By forgetting one or the other we either write something full of craziness or full of stiffness. By combining them, the novel never gets written.

The only way is to do first one, then the other, then a balance (that sounds confusing since I just said you can’t combine them, but bear with me!), then publish. I’ll explain more on each of these steps (or, rather, each of these drafts). I made up the system, but the general idea comes from Peter Elbow’s book.

Some of you may be thinking right now, “Crazy is a good thing!” Well, it is! It really is. In the first draft. After that, though you want to write something original and meaningful of course, you need to tug back on the reins. You’re past the finish line; time to groom your horse.

Okay, that was a weird metaphor that didn’t necessarily make sense, but you get the point.

Here’s my system:

First drafts are for crazy (feeling – just writing).

Second drafts are for organization (thinking – revising).

Third drafts are for polishing (editing).

Final drafts are for perfection (review then publish).

(A quick note: that’s not from Writing with Power, so you can ignore that advice if you do so choose, as it was just made up by me. However …

There were sixteen drafts of The Dressmaker’s Secret.

There were four of The Lady of the Vineyard.

So I’ve sorta-kinda experimented and found out that it works? I know TLOTV isn’t perfect, but it’s tamed.