I saw a tweet from Shannon Hale not that long ago that compared writing a first draft to shoveling sand in a sandbox so that she could build a castle with it later.
For me, writing a first draft is more like sketching a picture I'm going to paint with a pencil. That first sketch is limited, and I put in things that I know will have to change, even before I start layering paint. The eraser is my friend.
The last couple of first drafts I've written have been in notebooks. I haven't transferred Nightingale from the notebook to the computer yet, but tonight I finished my second draft of the MG space opera I wrote in the fall. At 20,998 words, it's slight, but it's longer than the 75 written pages it started out as.
It may double in size.
Some people write a lot of words in the beginning, cutting them later. I spend the first draft finding my characters and plot. Then I add layers. Either way, a lot of words get deleted or painted over.
This draft was my first experience with Scrivener, and I'm going to keep the story there for one more draft. Then I'll switch over to Word. I'll blog more about learning how to use Scrivener later. But at this point, I'm sold; I'll be typing Nightingale into Scrivener later this year.
What have you been up to this month?
For me, writing a first draft is more like sketching a picture I'm going to paint with a pencil. That first sketch is limited, and I put in things that I know will have to change, even before I start layering paint. The eraser is my friend.
The last couple of first drafts I've written have been in notebooks. I haven't transferred Nightingale from the notebook to the computer yet, but tonight I finished my second draft of the MG space opera I wrote in the fall. At 20,998 words, it's slight, but it's longer than the 75 written pages it started out as.
It may double in size.
Some people write a lot of words in the beginning, cutting them later. I spend the first draft finding my characters and plot. Then I add layers. Either way, a lot of words get deleted or painted over.
This draft was my first experience with Scrivener, and I'm going to keep the story there for one more draft. Then I'll switch over to Word. I'll blog more about learning how to use Scrivener later. But at this point, I'm sold; I'll be typing Nightingale into Scrivener later this year.
What have you been up to this month?
