Random Insight Into My Writing Process

I write more slowly than you. Yes, you. If you're reading this, and you write, I write less words an hour than you do.

I'm still coming to terms with this. When one of you encourages me with the words "Well, just do an extra thousand words a day. Thinking small will help," well, I'm discouraged. I have to reply, in embarrassment, "Um, my goal is one thousand words. No, a week." And I turn that in late.

Unacceptable, right? Completely ludicrous! I'm just not writing enough. BiC, HoK, baby. Butt in Chair, Hands on Keyboard.*

Nope. I write plenty.

I start my session by revising the section before it. And by revise, I mean rewrite, word for word, and change any I don't like. It's a lot of work, and slows me down, but it lets me keep the energy of the scene while adding the poetry, the beauty.

I also do three drafts of a scene before I'm ready to completely move on. The first is exploratory, in which I have only the general idea of where it needs to go. The second is to make my fumbling seem less blind than it was, fixing consistency, fixing tone, fixing flow. The last is the polish, fixing things on a word-to-sentence level. The end product is something I'm willing to share, if not something I'm willing to submit.

This means that my first actual "Draft" is actually draft three. I write extremely slow, but I need to do less "Drafts" than most people.

My first draft is cleaner than yours. Yes, yours. If you're reading this, and you write, my first draft is probably prettier than yours.

I'm coming to terms with being slower.


*BiC, HoK borrowed from Writing excuses, Howard Tayler in particular.