Today I celebrate that grand moment, the surreal experience of finishing a first draft. So today we explore how to get to that milestone, how to make it through your first draft.
I don’t know about other writers, but for me, first drafts are the worst part of the writing process. Whether you’re a plotter or a pantser or somewhere in between the first draft of a novel can be a daunting task. Following my outlining post recently, I decided to soldier on through first drafts.
So, you have your outline ready (or don’t for those pantsers out there), and you’re ready to start writing. Standard disclaimer, every writer is different, and not every method will work for every writer.
Personally, what works for me is using my outline and working chronologically through my first draft. From chapter one to finish I work my way through methodically. Sometimes I get stuck, but I try to trudge through the slump and forge on. It's probably not the most effective method but it’s the way I work.
The biggest lesson I learnt working through my first first-draft since returning to writing, is just to keep going. I found I just had to get the words on the page, didn’t matter how horrible it came out or how vague it sounded, I just had to get it down. I can fix all of this in editing but I'll never get to editing if I focus too much on making it perfect the first time around.
Starting with NaNoWriMo 2022, I began slapping words on a page and, although I didn’t win, I came out a month later with 47K words. While my momentum slowed a bit after that, I now have a nearly 80K word first draft.
Lesson: Write! Fix it in editing, just get those words on the page. Find this moment for yourself.
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