Writing the first draft of your novel

Hey, y’all!  Happy Sunday! Today, I want to talk a little about editing and writing. 

And I’ll keep it simple. (If you know me, you’re probably calling me liar on that point)

When you’re writing your first draft, you are a writer. Full stop. Just be a writer. In that first draft, you’re just trying to get the basics of the story down and the basic outline finished. 

And your responsibility is to the story and the story alone. All you need to be thinking about is “how does this story want to be told?” and “how do I get it there?”

A writer’s responsibility is to the work - the story, the poem, whatever. That story has a way it wants to be told, and it’s our job to find it and tell it that way. 

That is all a first draft is about. You don’t need to be thinking about editing or who’s going to buy it or how you’re going to sell it. Not at all in the first draft. 

The easiest way to write a bad book is to try to write one that everyone will like. That’s not our job. That’s what content creators have to do. We’re here to make art, to craft wonderful stories with words. 

If you focus on what your writing group is going to say about this, or what your spouse will think, or what you readers will think when you are writing, you’ll end up sitting in the corner of the shower, hugging your knees while the water runs over you. 

Trying to satisfy an audience while writing is futile. And thinking about how you’re going to sell a book while trying to write its first draft is equally as pointless and depressing. 

That first draft is you creating your art, you telling a story only you can tell in the only way that story can be told. It’s you listening to the story, paying attention to what it says to you, and following the story to its logical end. 

That’s what a first draft is. 

Now, in subsequent drafts? Yes, sir or ma’am. That’s when you start thinking about all those other things. Because then, you have the base for your work. You have the bass line playing in the background and you’re going to follow it. 

That’s when you can start putting the meat on the bones and adding all those other cool elements you wanted to add. That’s when you start thinking about your audience, and that’s when you start editing. 

Let your first draft be a mess. They all are. All of them. No one nails a book on the first draft, and honestly, that’s kind of the fun part. 

So, remember, in your first draft, follow the story, listen to it, and take it to where it wants to end. That’s your responsibility in the first draft. 

After that, you can put on your editor hat and really go to work.