Down Draft

Last week I sat down to edit my first draft.  It was difficult to get my head into it and then I realized that I didn't take my own advice - let the first draft rest before editing.  So I set it down after a read through and will take it up again in August.

The book isn't as bad as I remember, it actually may turn out okay.  But I noticed something odd about this draft after my read through.  Almost every chapter is missing something - an ending.  The chapters seem to be leading up to something and then, ends abruptly.  This seems to be the norm, not the exception which is frankly, quite weird.  It's as if the book is waiting for something.  I'm wondering if, at some point in the future edits, a light bulb will go on and all the endings will fall into place.  I hope so, otherwise this book will be awkward to read.

In the meantime, I'm finally getting around to editing my friend's book.  She's sent me 24 chapters so far that I haven't looked at while I finished my own work.  After that, I may write a travel article or two.  And if there's time after that, figure out what to write next.  There's always another idea for a book, it's just figuring out which one to concentrate on.

And First Draft is Done.

Get everyone together and celebrate!

I wrote a meandering chapter, then another and then looked at my list of chapter ideas.  None of them had any content to write about anymore, most of the subjects had already been incorporated into other chapters.  So I sat there, a bit surprised because suddenly, my first draft is done.

This is a surprising turn of events because I thought there were a few more chapters to go and I wouldn't be done until the end of the month.  Also surprising because I'm not sure about the chapters I've written.  I was hoping for a few more writing sessions with "aha" moments in them.  This means that there's a lot more work in the next few drafts.

The bones are now in a jumble in a box.  Now I need to sort them out and see what animal takes shape.

How To Slow Down Time

In Anne Lamott's book, Bird by Bird, she said the first step to writing is to write a crappy (she used a different word) first draft.  I am so excelling at that step.

As I sat down and wrote another chapter, I bored myself.  Suddenly, an hour felt like two.  Every minute expanded as the time went by slowly as I hacked out another paragraph.  I had found a way to slow down time; write a crappy book.  Not only that, but reading it back also slowed down time.  I think I have a marketing idea.

"Time going too fast?  Slow it down by reading my book.  Every minute will feel like an hour!"

Think it will sell?

Not all of it was terrible.  But I did find a note in part of one chapter that said, "(this is getting boring)" so apparently my boring writing has happened before.  There were about 3-4 chapters that I did like out of all the ones I tried to flesh out.  I'm not sure what this will mean to the book yet.  There's a few more chapters that I need to bore myself with write and then the draft will be done.

Hopefully things will get better.  I think I need to find Lamott's book and find out what to do with a crappy first draft.