First Drafts
Last night I finished the first draft of the novel I've been working on since 2018 March. The accomplishment thrills me. I've been euphoric all day.
I want to talk about baby steps, because a finished first draft is a huge accomplishment, but it doesn't appear all on its own. It's not like a woke up yesterday and BAM there it was.
Instead, I woke up every day for the last 44 weeks (so about 310 days) and wrote almost every single day.
My aim was simple: write 10 pages a week, type them up (I write longhand), and send them to my Author Accelerator book coach Dawn Ius. It's a habit that really works for me.
These past two weeks, with the end in sight, I powered through a lot more than my usual ten pages. It helped that I didn't have full-time art studies or medical appointments these last 14 days.
But back to those baby steps.
If you read my How Did We Get Here post, you know I stopped writing for nearly a decade, even though Story is the love of my life.
I picked up my pen again 2018 March with a lot of encouragement (over years) from my MFA friends and fellow writers Rachel Sa and Victoria Bell.
I shoved all my self-doubt and self-hate aside and signed up for the 13-week Story Genius workshop.
I met my writing coach, and Story ran out to meet me. For the first time in years, writing was fun again.
A lot of that came from the support I have, but even more came from the fact that I wasn't writing a novel. I was writing this word. This sentence. This scene.
Every step was small and contained. No part of my story could overwhelm me because that giant end -- the Finished Draft -- was baby steps.
Adam Dougherty aka Kreature Kid, an artist I admire and follow on Instagram, posted the other day about being in a creative funk this past year. He wants to create this amazing stop-motion movie, but feels disappointed with what he's accomplished.
Meanwhile, the rest of us are drooling over everything he's shared. We're in awe and can't wait to see more. To us, he's a creative genius. But he sees failure.
What's the disconnect here?
If you love to create, you know this funk. I'm convinced, having spent far too much time in it, that it comes from looking too long at the big, distant ideal and forgetting all the baby steps that go into its realization.
If I thought about my novel as a NOVEL (and to be honest, I thought I was writing a novella...), I'd never be able to write it. I'd get stuck on that huge, big end. That perfect book.
I can't write a Finished Draft. It's too much. Too big. Too easy to put on that pedestal of perfection.
But a sentence? A paragraph? A scene?
No problem. I can these dance baby steps all day long.
And I mean to.
I want to talk about baby steps, because a finished first draft is a huge accomplishment, but it doesn't appear all on its own. It's not like a woke up yesterday and BAM there it was.
Instead, I woke up every day for the last 44 weeks (so about 310 days) and wrote almost every single day.
My aim was simple: write 10 pages a week, type them up (I write longhand), and send them to my Author Accelerator book coach Dawn Ius. It's a habit that really works for me.
 |
| My writing assistant Fleur |
These past two weeks, with the end in sight, I powered through a lot more than my usual ten pages. It helped that I didn't have full-time art studies or medical appointments these last 14 days.
But back to those baby steps.
If you read my How Did We Get Here post, you know I stopped writing for nearly a decade, even though Story is the love of my life.
I picked up my pen again 2018 March with a lot of encouragement (over years) from my MFA friends and fellow writers Rachel Sa and Victoria Bell.
I shoved all my self-doubt and self-hate aside and signed up for the 13-week Story Genius workshop.
I met my writing coach, and Story ran out to meet me. For the first time in years, writing was fun again.
A lot of that came from the support I have, but even more came from the fact that I wasn't writing a novel. I was writing this word. This sentence. This scene.
 |
| Kitty is ready to edit. She has to wait until the draft is done. |
Adam Dougherty aka Kreature Kid, an artist I admire and follow on Instagram, posted the other day about being in a creative funk this past year. He wants to create this amazing stop-motion movie, but feels disappointed with what he's accomplished.
Meanwhile, the rest of us are drooling over everything he's shared. We're in awe and can't wait to see more. To us, he's a creative genius. But he sees failure.
What's the disconnect here?
If you love to create, you know this funk. I'm convinced, having spent far too much time in it, that it comes from looking too long at the big, distant ideal and forgetting all the baby steps that go into its realization.
If I thought about my novel as a NOVEL (and to be honest, I thought I was writing a novella...), I'd never be able to write it. I'd get stuck on that huge, big end. That perfect book.
I can't write a Finished Draft. It's too much. Too big. Too easy to put on that pedestal of perfection.
But a sentence? A paragraph? A scene?
No problem. I can these dance baby steps all day long.
And I mean to.
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If you'd like to see what I'm working on, my art Instagram is @izaoctober.
My art is also for sale on Etsy.
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