Thoughts on the Lonely First Draft

Because the first draft is just you telling yourself the story.

Dec 06, 2024

✨ This post was originally published under The Thought Spiral. Same voice, new name. Welcome to Follow Through!

💭 Thursday Thoughts

You might have heard the saying “The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.” And I can confirm that’s true! It’s exciting to have a plan, sit down at my keyboard, and see all my planning go out the window as soon as my characters open their mouths. I can think I have the story pinned down, and within three sentences, it flies off the rails because I think my subconscious brain knows the story better than my conscious brain does. Weird how that works, isn’t it?

Over the past few months, I’ve been trying to embrace the “shitty first draft“ mentality while writing this first draft of The Alchemy, which has been a huge help for my creative process. Removing the need for the work to be “good“, and allowing it to simply exist has freed me up to explore different forms the story can eventually take, different motivations for characters, multi-media elements, and points of view that might be compelling.

The words are certainly getting written, and I’m proud that entering my third month of drafting, I haven’t given up, and I haven’t allowed my brain to shift to working on a new project.

Because I’m the one writing the story, I understand how all of these scenes will eventually work together despite the inconsistencies in point of view, tense, style, speech patterns, and more, but it would probably look like a disaster to anyone who tried to read it. I’m trying to let myself make a mess. I can clean it up later, but trying to play while keeping a room perfectly tidy is probably the best way to scare off creativity.

Unfortunately, though, I don’t usually like inviting guests over when I know my home is a mess, and the same goes for my writing. I’m okay with the flaws, embracing the process, and all of that, but letting someone else see when things are this raw is terrifying.

This can make the drafting process very lonely. I want to talk to people about the story, about the scenes I’m excited about and the lines I’m proud to have written, but that would require so much prefacing of “this will likely change” or “please ignore that this scene goes from past tense to present tense at least three times” or “oh, yeah, I decided to change this entire subplot”.

Even if the writing was pristine, it’s a lot to keep up with, and trying to include anyone else’s thoughts or opinions this early on would be risky business. The whole process is very delicate, and I wouldn’t give it up for the world, but I do long for the day when I’m in revisions and I can share more of the story openly and collaborate more regularly.

I think the dream of sharing my story with the world one day is what really continues to push me forward. I know one day, you’ll get to meet Blair and Fallon. For now, just trust me when I say I think you’ll really like them.

Novel Writing Updates:

I officially began my 90 Day Novel writing journey through The Novelry on December 1st. Admittedly in November, I was not the most consistent with my novel writing between the holidays and traveling. Still, I spent some time writing and every day I thought about my characters and my story. I had about 10,000 words under my belt going into this challenge, and the end goal for my 90 days is to hit 75,000. That number feels so big and far away, but I have to remind myself not to get too far ahead and simply take it one hundred words at a time.

I think my favorite thing about being a writer is how completely a story can take over my mind. It’s impossible for me to learn something new, see something moving in a play, or read a beautiful line in a novel without considering how it might be relevant to the characters in my manuscript. I can’t listen to music without picturing scenes playing out between characters. Every time I hear “Welcome to New York,” I picture Blair stepping out of a taxi and seeing Manhattan for the first time. Every time I watch a Christmas movie (a daily occurrence now that we’re in December), I take mental notes on the story structure and how the balance of romance, humor, and drama play together. Every time I read a book, I consider how the first hundred pages are working to both hook the reader and set up the larger world and story.

For the 90-Day Novel, The Novelry provides a few guidelines to help set us writers up for success. The two that I’m thinking about right now are:

For the next 90 days, I have to be a WRITER, not a READER. The program suggests picking a “hero book“ for a prescribed list—I’m currently between A Marvelous Light by Freya Marske and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and read ONLY that book for the next 90 days. Yes, that means potentially re-reading the book several times. The hope is that focusing on one story will help me to identify the individual pieces of the novel and develop a very deep understanding of how each scene builds off the other to create the final story. Furthermore, focusing on only one story will help keep my brain focused during the 90 days rather than overwhelming myself with different sources of inspiration and ending up in a perpetual research phase—something I’m guilty of. I understand why it’s necessary, but I’m not happy about it. I’ve made a compromise with myself that I will only read one book of fiction, but I can read up to 3 non-fiction books on writing craft to pull inspiration from and hopefully help prevent writer’s block.
I should aim to write for one hour per day—and ONLY one hour. I like this constraint because one hour is a very approachable amount of time—just enough to get a good chunk of writing on, but not so much time that I’ll end up staring at the page feeling stuck and exhausted. This is supposed to be called my “golden hour“, and I’ll have to guard this hour religiously to ensure I have time to write.

I’m going to focus on implementing these two rules over the next week, and I’ll let you know how it goes next Thursday!

This Week’s Little Bits of Joy:

One of my favorite parts of babysitting my niece and nephew is reading to them before bed at night. They’re both really into reading, and I love being able to share that with them and get a glimpse into some of the books they’re excited about. Last week, I was reading one of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books to my nephew, and I was inspired by how accurately the author could portray the angst and childlike imagination of Greg (the main character). It made me want to try my hand at writing middle-grade fiction, and I think that might be one of my next projects after The Alchemy.
My in-laws got me the cutest and most comfortable chair for my writing desk as a Christmas present, and it came in yesterday! I love it, and sitting at my writing desk is so much more enjoyable now. The chair is from Branch, where I also got my chair for my 9-5 job, and both styles are 10/10. The prices are super reasonable for the quality, and I couldn’t recommend them enough.
Long weekends - this past weekend was so lovely. I got to see my closest friends, spend time with family for several days, work on my creative projects, get to brunch and connect with some of the lovely people from my church, AND sleep in and watch TV. I hope one day we’ll move to a four-day work week because I felt so satisfied, thankful, loved, and rested going into work this past Monday.
Inspired by reading to my niece and nephew, I decided to pick up one of my childhood favorites, Ella Enchanted, from the library. It’s been so fun to revisit Ella’s world, and it’s giving me some fun ideas for Blair’s story, too.
At the movie theatre near my apartment, an attendant usually will wait by the door and hands out mints and the end of the movie. It’s such a small thing, but it’s nice.
My phone has been acting up over the past few weeks, so I finally bit the bullet and paid the insurance deductible. My new phone came in today, and it’s been so satisfying to have a phone that’s fully functional again. I know it’s such a first-world problem, but still, it’s reminded me to be grateful for simple things like our devices working how we want and need them to.
🎨 Mood Board