Monday, August 25, 2014

Don't Judge a Draft

The time spent writing a draft of a new project is not the time to edit. Or judge. Or critique. Or in any way disturb the creative flow. Got it?

Yeah, right.

Maybe because I've started writing again after a too-long-to-mention dry spell, I'm telling myself, willing myself, begging myself, screaming back at my inner editor to shut the shit up.

Ollie, whose attitude I like.
So far, it's working. I want to write two hours a day for 50 consecutive days. I haven't quite lived up to my goal (I've written every day but not for two hours each time). I'm not letting the downers creep in. The single thing propelling me is my determination not to self-edit as I go. I'm just laying down the tracks. Playing around. Slapping down some ideas and not looking too critically at what's come before or what might come after.

Kinda the way I blog.

The time to judge is every second AFTER the draft is finished. How many of us start a project and never finish it? I see you nodding back at me. We become wrapped up in the outcome or overwhelmed by the enormity of the project or think the idea isn't worth finishing.

There's plenty of time for doubt later. Push it aside. When the draft is done, then I'll have plenty of readers, reviewers, crabby old <insert relative's name>, and hopefully, sales, to judge whether what I've done was worth doing.

It's Day Six. Time to get railroading.

3 comments:

  1. Way to get motivated :) I need deadlines to get things accomplished, which is really tragic. I love to write, but it is far too easy to get caught up in other things all together. For my last book my husband challenged me to write a novel in three months. I did it, not editing at all, just letting it flow, but then it took me nearly a year to get through all the requests and edits, and since I put it online, I still haven't made the little formatting corrections that will enable me to push it farther. By the way, I'm about 60 pages into your book, enjoying it so far :)

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    Replies
    1. Yeah! For reading my book and for writing your own. Please come back and post the title or your work and a link to it so if anyone wants to look you up, they can!

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    2. The Title is The Darkening Dragons. Currently it is only available via Smashwords.com, but eventually I really am going to fix that glitch...

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