Drafts – how tedious
Every author I speak to complains about rewrites and working through drafts. My author self does too, although to be honest, it can sometimes be quite a cathartic process – but that might be more so for non-fiction writing than fiction.
Regardless, the necessity of reworking the first draft is imperative. I can only shake my head in disbelief when an author says to me, ‘But I’ve already been through the manuscript 19 times.’ Only 19? The little forest (printed double sided of course) next to your shredder should speak for itself.
Until you get that first draft written though, you can’t do anything else with it. And, no matter how much it evolves or not, it will always contain that initial germ of an idea which developed and grew into the final product.
Every first draft is perfect because all the first draft has to do is exist
JANE SMILEY#amwriting #writing #writerslife
Art Elena Shumilova pic.twitter.com/yPxN5oqW9R— Novelicious (@noveliciouss) January 16, 2017
first published 25 August 2017, updated 2024
