Writing a novel: first draft

[crich70]

I found this via the literature and latte website and thought I'd pass on the article.

Yesterday, I finished the first draft of my first1 novel. It came out at just over 90,000 words, which was the target I had in mind. It was a strange and emotional experience. After typing the last word, I felt like I’d been suddenly dumped out of that fictional world and back into this one, with an abruptness that almost made my ears pop.

I finished it while on my exercise bike here in my home office, before midday. During the afternoon, I reopened the project at least five times to check I hadn’t imagined the whole thing. I’ve had mixed feelings of relief and bereavement, coupled with dread of the enormous set of second draft revisions looming ahead of me.

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[cromag]

Thanks, crich70. That was interesting.

[gmw]

I'm impressed that he has the ... whatever, to share his experience. But I often wonder where people get the confidence to go from "I've written my first draft" to "I'm entitled to give advice on how others should write". It seems a pretty big leap to me.

I have my own (private) writing log*, and there are parts that feel very familiar what what Matt Gemmell says in his article, but at other points we diverge significantly. Things like not accepting pauses of more than a minute. I don't work like that. I've always been dogged (though others have called it other things ), and I tend to see things through. That's not going to work for everyone, it doesn't always work for me, but walking away from it (for me) is asking to be distracted and never getting past it.

There is something contradictory in human nature. We seem to have both the "it worked for me so it must work for you" reaction to things, and we hold it right next to the one that says "my experience was so different to what anyone else has ever had". It's not always obvious which one will jump to the fore in a given situation.

* It is one of my many procrastination activities. Though, to be honest, I think the log helps me to get some things out of the way, out of my system, so that time in the story doesn't get sidelined by other thoughts.

[Penforhire]

Thanks Crich!

I didn't see much hubris in his comments. It does come across clearly as this is what worked "for me." He also has experience in shorter form writing. I like seeing how other people use certain tools (Scrivener here). He appears committed to using social media as a marketing (Twitter) and/or sustaining (Patreon) tool. Yep, takes guts to hang yourself out in the wind for everyone to watch.

He doesn't mention one piece of advice I read a long time ago and liked -- try to stop writing for the day while you still have something you are burning to say. That way your next session is painless to start and you're less tempted to dawdle over what you already wrote.

edit - oops, he says exactly this in one of his other blog entries! Obviously a bloke who knows what he's doing, lol.