Treat Your First Draft Like a One Night Stand

or act like Kim Novak in Picnic

Treat your first draft like a one night stand. Bring tequila, insanity, and animal instincts to the party— drape your panties on a bare light bulb, kick your shoes across the room, play loud music, and dance naked. Drink too much, and throw up on the kitchen floor. Never, ever promise to return. And never say I Iove you. You won’t be back, you’re here for the thrill of it. And that is all.

You’re not the voice of your generation, you’re not writing the great American novel, you’re not deconstructing Ulysses, or writing a memoir that finally and definitively encapsulates the 60’s. You are not trying to define or expand upon your genre. You are just having fun. You are just fucking. Again, for the sheer thrill of it. You are writing because it fucking makes you feel alive.

Set the mood. Candles are excellent. French roast or cannabis sativa? Dare I suggest madeleines? That might be too obvious, but please, consider your space. Fix it till it feels good. Ask your lover, What kind of music do you like, and then play what you like, even if it’s the Sex Pistols, Madame Butterfly, Talking Heads, Donna Summer, Philip Glass, or Barry White because he says, “I don’t want to feel no panties.”

Do not worry about commitments. Set a deadline to finish, or don’t. But whatever you do, don’t obsess about structure, characters, mood, setting, voice, or tone — not to mention your social media platforms, your demographic, your key words, or your genre, in other words, a serious relationship. Because that is the very best way to ruin the fucking. Satisfaction not guaranteed. That will not be fun.

The first draft is a sloppy, sweating, sexy beast. Chaos abounds. So does bullshit. It should be a total disaster. Because the only thing that matters is finishing it—whatever it is; novel, novella, epic poem, collection, memoir, fable, fairy-tale, personal myth, and that’s why you have to be stupid and careless. Wear cheap perfume, and ripped black underwear, scuffed boots and eye shadow. Don’t bring your A game, be like Kim Novak in Picnic. Fuck your reputation. Have fun.

Of course, you will be back. You will be back and you might even spend months, years, decades with this lover. Mornings and evenings. Fall and winter. Deep in the hot heart of summer: Unwashed hair, nothing but peanut butter in the fridge, dirty dishes, dust, unopened mail, laundry spooling out from the closet, and it’s 2:00 a.m., and you have to up at 6:00 a.m., but you are back again, with this lover, who has long ceased to be a one night stand.