Today is the perfect time to start this blog because it’s the first day of National Novel Writing Month! For those unfamiliar, NNWM challenges writers to complete a 50k word novel in 30 days. This is a great exercise in writing forward: powering through your pages without editing. If you were to write every day (which a lot of people won’t), then you would have to type five pages per day. That’s a lot for any writer to accomplish. The best way to do it is to NEVER LOOK BACK.
This is the theme of Worst Draft. Too many people approach writing as something that should be mastered on the first try. We edit as we type, hemming and hawing down the page as we try to find the right words. But why? you ask. Why shouldn't I want to do it right the first time?
Most things we do in life have the same destination regardless of the path we chose to get there. Repainting your living room, cooking dinner, building Ikea furniture. You can enjoy the process, but you always have an idea about what the outcome will be: a blue wall, chicken paprika, a crappy dresser.
Writing is something entirely different from anything else we do in life. The process can yield a product that is nothing like what you thought you were going to create in the first place. It’s getting lost in the woods and finding yourself at the base of an active volcano, ready to blow. There’s no logical way in or out so editing while writing will hold you back. Get into the groove and let your imagination take over.
That’s why I advocate for a Worst Draft. This is a chance to give your imagination free range over your project before logic steps in and says, Wait, since when do vampires sparkle like disco balls in the sun? A writer’s first step will always be a gamble, but that’s a bet you can afford to take. There will always be other drafts to revise. So make a promise to yourself before you begin that you will never let anyone see your Worst Draft.
Did you do it? Feel better? You should. Now shut up! You've got a novel to write.
This is the theme of Worst Draft. Too many people approach writing as something that should be mastered on the first try. We edit as we type, hemming and hawing down the page as we try to find the right words. But why? you ask. Why shouldn't I want to do it right the first time?
Most things we do in life have the same destination regardless of the path we chose to get there. Repainting your living room, cooking dinner, building Ikea furniture. You can enjoy the process, but you always have an idea about what the outcome will be: a blue wall, chicken paprika, a crappy dresser.
Writing is something entirely different from anything else we do in life. The process can yield a product that is nothing like what you thought you were going to create in the first place. It’s getting lost in the woods and finding yourself at the base of an active volcano, ready to blow. There’s no logical way in or out so editing while writing will hold you back. Get into the groove and let your imagination take over.
That’s why I advocate for a Worst Draft. This is a chance to give your imagination free range over your project before logic steps in and says, Wait, since when do vampires sparkle like disco balls in the sun? A writer’s first step will always be a gamble, but that’s a bet you can afford to take. There will always be other drafts to revise. So make a promise to yourself before you begin that you will never let anyone see your Worst Draft.
Did you do it? Feel better? You should. Now shut up! You've got a novel to write.
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