Why I Needed Fast Draft Like A Glass of Water on a Ship in the Pacific

Writing used to be almost completely instinctual for me. If you ever read the first draft of my first completed novel, you would see that pretty plainly. It’s pure kitchen-sink plotting: Every time the story slowed down, I threw in another attack or explosion, and made sense of them later.

Years later when I wrote Donte’s book, Taro’s (Knight Errant), Rafe’s (His Faithful Squire), and Keen’s all in less than a year, I was still running on instinct, but I was getting better. I remember Donte’s book was supposed to climax in action at the rescue, but when the trial came that felt like the big event and I went with it. Taro’s book as well–supposed to climax with the rescue, but I had to go farther so the hotel lobby held the big event. Rafe’s book…oh, Rafe’s book. We’ll just not mention all the challenges of Rafe’s book.

When I was younger, I didn’t “do” writing advice. Oh, I had a subscription to Writer’s Digest for a while, and that helped immeasurably, but I didn’t take classes and no one read my stuff and I didn’t even read books on writing. How could anyone else, I reasoned, teach me how I write?

O foolish innocence…

Eventually I wised up. Or maybe I just needed to buy books. I generally don’t read while I’m writing, so I might have been in a bookstore, lured in by its siren call but unwilling to buy fiction because I was in the middle of one of my own stories and afraid to lose it. So maybe I wandered out of fiction and into non-fiction, rather naturally into the writing section and saw a book with a familiar name…I can totally see this happening.

Whatever. I acquired books. I remembered both enjoying and learning from Nancy Kress in Writer’s Digest, and bought her Beginnings, Middles, and Ends. Same with James Scott Bell and Plot and Structure (both HIGHLY recommended, btw.) Those were so helpful and amazing and fun to read, I got more.

Anyway. I have a whole shelf of writing books now. They take up one-sixth of my limited shelf space. These are the ones I have deemed helpful–the unhelpful or unreadable get a quick trip back out the door.

The point of all this is that over the years, so gradually that I didn’t really notice, my writing has gotten slower. More tortuous. Better? Definitely. But also slower. And this past year, as I’ve studied structure…wow.

Last year was the first time I didn’t win NaNo, after five years of solid wins. I can’t seem to restart my fanfics (I used to write a chapter a week!) for love or money.† And last month I didn’t win Camp NaNo despite working half-days at the day job most of the month and having a week completely off.

A lot of things have been going on, yes, but I think I’ve got my culprit. I am trying too hard to get it right instead of working towards getting it written.

Yes, I know and repeat all the sayings. You can’t edit a blank page. It’s perfectly okay to write garbage so long as you edit brilliantly. The first draft is the crap draft. Blah blah blah. But they don’t apply to ME. I’m better than that, you see. I can write a clean first draft, so why wouldn’t I? Especially when I’ve won NaNo five times. I proved I can do it. Nobody can put nothing on me.

Yeah. I’m not all that prideful a person, but sometimes it still trips me up. Funny that.

So I think yesterday was the first time I mentioned taking this Fast Draft class. All of that up there is why I did it. Oh, I didn’t think about it when I signed up. I hadn’t even finished losing Camp NaNo yet! I just had this urge to write like I used to. I wanted someone to give me a swift kick in the rear and a drill sergeant to bellow in my ear screaming “write! Write like you love it! WRITE LIKE YOU WANT TO DO IT!”

Well, Candy isn’t screaming at me, but she is iron-willed and I <3 it. Yesterday I wrote 2k, and it hurt and was hard as hell but by God I DID IT because I’m not failing again. Today I woke up excited. 2k a day is how my life SHOULD be. Sure, I thought 1,666 a day was NaNo pace so mine could and probably should be slower, but I was wrong. I can write 2k a day. I can probably do it in an hour and a half.

Am I not always saying that I want to write All The Things? If that’s the case, I better pick up my pace!

So, umm, Fast Draft? Highly recommended.

† note: no one has offered me money for fanfiction. That would be illegal. It’s a saying.