The First Draft is the Easy Part
Writing is a muscle
Including this year’s NaNoWriMo novel, I’ve penned three complete books in my life. The first, written the summer after I graduated high school, was terrible. The second, drafted as my college’s version of a thesis, was overwritten, but passable (no, I still won’t show it to you, don’t ask). The third, written a month ago and still wet behind the ears from creation, might be something someone would call good, someday.
But not yet.
This third book (I still feel squirmy using that word, like a middle schooler admitting to having a first crush) is the first piece that I’ve given to other people (for reasons other than graduation) with the belief they will actually read it and the hope that they will give me brutal, honest feedback.
When I shared the Google doc draft with my friend who has known me since my preteen years (when I wrote embarrassing poetry that featured lots of rain pouring down on faces) she asked me what kind of feedback was I looking for — general comments, specific feedback, something like “this sentence sounds weird.”
I immediately replied, “you can do that, too, but I think I have bigger problems than that. I’d like to know if it’s structurally sound.”
People are often impressed when I say, “I’ve written two books before.” I try not to be a jerk, so when they say complimentary things about my endeavor, I smile and say, “yeah, I’m pretty proud of it,” instead of what I want to say, which is, “anyone can write a book. It’s writing a good one that’s hard.”
So what makes something good?
A lot of work.
When I wrote my college-level novel, I spent the first half of the year banging on keys until I had 95,000 words that made up a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. My advisors thought even this feat was ambitious: Throughout the project, they kept telling me it was all right if I didn’t even finish the novel, so long as I got a lot of it done and tried really hard. I was appalled by this, because while 95,000 words is nothing to sniff at, it’s not an accomplishment if the words aren’t worth the time it would take another person to read them.
So I spent the second half of my last year of college hacking my book to pieces, reading it out loud, asking my advisors to tell me everything bad or boring and perhaps, sometimes, something that delighted them, so that I could push on what was good, kill what was bad, and explain what didn’t make any sense.
Years ago when I was accepted into a summer program for creative writing, I was told that the best writing is born out of life experiences, but it truly becomes fiction when you can ruthlessly edit that story without hesitating and saying ‘but that’s not how it really happened’. I recite this like a mantra when I write, no matter what I’m writing about. We don’t always write from the core truth of a life experience, but we often do, and whether consciously or not, we always draw on our life experience to inform out writing, so sometimes, an edit or rework can be exquisitely painful.
That’s where novels are really written. In that pain of editing.
My best advice to someone who wants to write, but is struggling, is to start putting words down, no matter how cumbersome it feels and how uninspired you think the words to be. Open your laptop, pound away on the keys. Pick up a pen (if that’s your jam) and scrawl on a page. Don’t reread. Don’t edit or rewrite. Keep creating new words. When you get stuck, open a new document and brainstorm, or, hell, keep writing in the same document — but don’t look back. Keep going. Get it done.
I hate ham-fisted analogies, but I’m going to use one here. Writing is a lot like exercise, or being good at a sport. You might see a woman at the gym with beautifully chiseled arms, busting out chin ups like a boss, and think, “that’s a work of art” — but the art didn’t come from entering the gym or happen spontaneously from that workout session you are watching. Her accomplishments came about by way of grueling, repetitive, tireless work where she struggled and sometimes failed and sometimes achieved until she got to that place where you see her now, suspended in the air like a superhero.
Writing’s like that, kind of. It’s a muscle. You have to keep practicing, and you always have to challenge yourself to go further in order to get better.
Writing the first draft of a novel is an amazing feat. Putting in the work to get that novel to a point where you feel good saying, “this is done” — that’s the hard part. That’s where the work happens.
If I’m being entirely honest with you, fellow readers, I should confess I’m writing this story because it’s way easier than editing my novel’s first draft. Thanks for helping me procrastinate. You did me a solid.
