The First Draft

The first draft, eh? A bit daunting isn’t it?

Remember, every writer you’ve ever loved started out at this exact point — and it scared the crap out of the lot of them.

Here we are, looking out over the vast uncharted territory of your novel.

Some of you have map and compass and heavy-duty all-weather gear — others just have crazed expressions and a willingness to roam in the wilderness.

Enjoy the view. You’re looking for quantity not quality.

This isn’t the place for perfect grammar or well-constructed sentences — it’s where you go stomping through the mud.

Leave your inner-editor at home.

In fact, hand over your inner-editor right now for safe-keeping.

Respond to this post, relinquishing your inner-editor and saying exactly how you expect it to be treated whilst you’re busy writing your novel.

Don’t worry, you can have it back afterwards.

That’s why I said ‘leave it at home’ and not ‘leave it face-down in a ditch.’

After the first draft, your inner-editor comes to the fore.

What should I write?

Whatever rocks your boat.

Write what you want to write, not what you should write.

Don’t write what you’re bored with.

Start with no idea whatsoever and just see what happens, or even mix two or three ideas together.

This isn’t about perfection — it’s about having fun and convincing your muse that you should seek professional help.

You don’t have to write every day, it’s not meant to be perfect, and nobody will kill you if you don’t succeed, but them’s the rules.

Life is one big Duke of Edinburgh trip and will throw at you lots of perfectly good excuses to not write. But you mustn’t fall for them, unless you want to be a One Day Novelist… as in, “One day I’ll write a novel.”

Take a notebook with you and write throughout the day — write on the toilet, write on the bus, write in the stupidest place you can think of.

Just write.

Gibberish Draft

Write faster. I’m not joking.

Hand over your inner editor.

Each chapter doesn’t have to be perfect before you move on, this is a GIBBERISH DRAFT (even more bonkers and random and unfinished than a first draft.

Stop trying to be Atlas (that Greek bloke with the world on his shoulders). You say you’re struggling with your world — you have a world?! A plot-ish is all you need!

Seriously though, if your novel is set in France, on Mars, or in Ancient Greece it doesn’t matter. Don’t do detailed “research” (or world-building) for your novel until you have written your first draft.

In other words, forget about all that background stuff and just TELL THE STORY. [The rest is just TK]

Some days you’ll write more, other days you won’t but don’t worry about it too much. You’re doing just fine.

Isak Dinesen said that she wrote a little every day, without hope and without despair. That’s all you have to do.

Your novel probably won’t win the Booker Prize. It’s not supposed to.

This is no time to start disliking your story — give yourself permission to write the WORST NOVEL IN THE WORLD.

Do not delete. There’s no need or time or reason to go back. Once you’ve finished, you can burn it if you want.

Right now, just keep plugging away at it and if you write in spite of fatigue / boredom then your characters will start to take over.

Give them something fun to do, take them out for a picnic, whatever… just keep going and it will get better.

There’s no backwards, only forwards.

If your story has to hobble along on bloodied stumps for a while, that’s fine, just keep it moving.

If your mind is crying out to write a certain scene that you aren’t at yet… guess what you should do? WRITE THE SCENE.

You don’t have to write your story in order (I write mine in a weird sort of spiral) — just write the good bits in the order that they occur to you.

Do. Or do not. There is no try.

“Do. Or do not. There is no try.” — Yoda

The little green bastard has a point.

Give yourself a pat on the back. Preferably not the cow kind.

You’re still here.

Writing can’t be taught, but it can be learnt. And the only way to learn is through writing.

Regardless of how far behind you’ve fallen with your wordcount, you should be proud of yourself — you’ve made a commitment to your writing.

I don’t care if you’ve written one word, or eleventy — if you write at all then you’re still in the game.

Life gets in the way sometimes. Life will always get in the way. That’s life.

A student once moaned that they couldn’t write because they had a Duke of Edinburgh trip.

Life is one big Duke of Edinburgh trip.

The question is, what do you want from life, what do you want to have done in life, what do you love in life?

Go directly there. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred pounds… (damn, these Monopoly references are really showing my age!)

Now, I’m extremely proud of each and every one of you just for having shown up here.

Hell, I’m proud of myself every time I get up in the morning.

But I’ve some good news and some bad news.

The bad news is, however tired and worn out you feel, however miserable your muse is it’s about to get harder. You may even grind to a halt or drive your plot into a ditch.

But don’t mutiny just yet. The good news is it happens to everyone. You hit the wall, then you have to decide if you are going to get up again.

Like the Japanese saying: get knocked down seven times — stand up eight.

When you get back up, you’re going to find things get a lot easier and build momentum.

Your inner editor will realise you’re serious about this and TRULY chuck in the towel.

Your muse will realise you’re absolutely bonkers and fall head over heels in love with you.

Your characters will get sick and tired of waiting around and start taking matters into their own hands.

That’s when the fun starts.

The Next Page

Worrying about not having any ideas / not knowing what to write?

I’ll let you in on a little secret: You’re in a better position than those who’ve already mapped-out their idea with military precision.

Why? Because literally anything can happen, and as a result of writing so quickly, anything WILL happen — and you’ll often be shocked and pleased with the results.

Pick the first thing that comes into your head (“First Thought, Best Thought” as Ginsberg said) and just go with it until you hit a wall, then go with something else — you’ll find your own groove eventually.

And to those who’ve already planned their idea out to the letter — don’t worry, you’ll be fine too.

Just be willing to chuck the plan out of the window when something interesting comes up

Don’t get too bogged down looking at your plan instead of where your writing is actually going, or else you’ll be like a tourist driving around with the map stuck to the windowscreen.

Don’t be afraid to take a few wrong turns. You can always go back and pretend that you meant to take the scenic route all along.

How to make it to the finish line

You have one thing to decide: How do you make it to the finish line?

Your novel can end with a bang or like a wet fart.

You can go out in a blaze of glory, writing madly.

Or you can shrug, forget about it, and move on to other things.

But one way or another, you’ll make it to the finish line.

A friend sent me an animated picture with a note that said: “I saw this and thought of you.”

In it a stick man is typing away quite happily, and then grits his teeth and gets more determined and types faster.

Then he gets in a rage and type even harder, until his fingers start to bleed.

Then he’s wailing as he pounds his fists on the keyboard until they become bloody stumps.

When he has no arms left, he bashes his head against the keyboard.

His eyes fall out, but he keeps on smashing his skull against the keyboard until he has no face left.

Then the bloodied pulp that is what remains of his head collapses on to the keyboard.

Needless to say, I worry about what my friends think about me when they send me stuff like that.

That’s one way of making it to the finish line, but it’s really up to you.

When to start over on your novel

It’s ok to start over.

Revision is envisioning again.

If your first draft is shit it’s much quicker to rewrite from scratch than to edit.

Writing is rewriting, but editing a bad draft is an exercise in futility — like trying to trim sideburns.

You can’t polish a turd.

Let it all go and start again.

It’s ok to burn all of your bridges so long as you’re prepared to walk through fire to get where you want to go.

James Garside is an independent journalist, author, and travel writer. Join Chapter 23 for the inside track on all their creative projects and insights about life, work, and travel.