The drafting process

[breakinglight11]

The drafting process doesn’t come naturally to me, and as such, at times I find it frustrating. During my early development as a writer, I was extremely compelled to edit as I wrote, and if I couldn’t figure out just how I wanted to phrase something, I wouldn’t write it. That lead to nothing ever getting written, as that level of perfectionism is

Comments

[lisefrac]

It wasn’t until I started telling myself to just write SOMETHING, no matter how bad it was, no matter how far away from what I was envisioning, that I started actually making progress.

Amen to that. There was a saying we threw around at VP: you can't edit the blank page.

I think this is a problem a lot of beginning writers have--actually getting stuff down, and finishing their work. This is why I think NaNoWriMo is so important at a certain point in the learning process, as it teaches you to write (almost) every day, and to just put words down, even if they're the wrong ones. Other challenges (like your 31 plays) or writing prompts are valuable for similar reasons.

That said, now that I feel I can reliably finish stuff, I do allow myself some more leeway to edit as I write. I re-read my work from time to time, and fix obvious things--wording, inconsistencies, etc. But if I'm doing a wordcount-based challenge, something like Camp NaNo, like I am this month, I do temporarily suspend that urge.

But yeah. Drafting is picking out the stone; revising is chiseling away everything that isn't the statue.

[elenuial]

I think this is a problem a lot of beginning writers have--actually getting stuff down, and finishing their work. This is why I think NaNoWriMo is so important at a certain point in the learning process, as it teaches you to write (almost) every day, and to just put words down, even if they're the wrong ones. Other challenges (like your 31 plays) or writing prompts are valuable for similar reasons.

I actually didn't have this problem until after I went the Writer Camp. I think it made my internal editor too strong. I can moderate it with booze, but history shows how that usually ends up being a terrible idea.

Usually, though, when I've talked to people who are revise-as-you-go, the switch wasn't changing their style (like P. here) so much as doing things like having better planning or having a limit on in-process revisions. It's interesting to me to see you guys talk about doing the traditional "fuck it for the first draft" process instead. It's a trick I've never been able to get the hang of.

[lisefrac]

I definitely struggled a little bit more with my internal editor after writing camp. It was especially hard to go from these critiques by authors I admire to having to write a piece of short fiction to a prompt. Somehow, I was able to do it. It kind of felt like my mind just shifted into the right gear.

I dunno, I have no good advice, I guess. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.