Project Arizona Draft 2 (and My Plan for the Future)
Draft 2 is underway!
Honestly, I am feeling much better about this draft than I was my first draft. The nature of the first draft is to be a mess. It serves mostly to get your idea from your head onto paper. So of course it's going to be jumbled and not well-written.
That's where the second draft comes in.
There's a great quote that Neil Gaiman has in his ads for his Masterclass where he says "the process of doing your second draft is the process of making it look like you knew what you were doing all along."
That has been echoing in my head for weeks. Even while I was writing my first draft for NaNoWriMo, this was on repeat. I want my second draft to feel more like a story, more like a novel. My first draft, while it has the main idea, is definitely more telling instead of showing. Changing that has been my main goal of draft two.
And so far, I'm loving my second draft. I think it flows better, my characters have more distinct voices and personalities. I'm having a lot of fun! I'm taking notes as I go for draft 3, writing down every idea I want to explore later in the story that I didn't explore in the first draft. More complex character relationships that I want to flush out. Landscapes and towns that I need to describe better. There's a lot. And I love that. I love it.
My goal is to finish my second draft by the end of December. I'm giving myself some leeway, of course, because life happens and I can't always control it. If the end of December isn't realistic, then I want to have it done by the end of January 2020. Once I finish the second draft, I plan on printing it out (for the first time!), just to have and to hold it. I'll let it rest, like you do with any good steak, and go through it with fresh eyes. Make my edits and changes in draft three, and if I feel ready by then, I may send it out to some beta readers (if I can recruit some). My ultimate goal is to be done with this novel by the end of 2020, and perhaps start querying it in 2021.
Those are real years y'all. I can't believe it either. The '20s are coming back (get your flapper dresses out). I think the '20s are going to be good. I'll have a complete novel done and hopefully on its way to being published, either traditionally or by myself. And just having that in my mind, makes me want to sit down and keep writing. I'm going to go do that now.
Happy writing y'all!!
Honestly, I am feeling much better about this draft than I was my first draft. The nature of the first draft is to be a mess. It serves mostly to get your idea from your head onto paper. So of course it's going to be jumbled and not well-written.
That's where the second draft comes in.
There's a great quote that Neil Gaiman has in his ads for his Masterclass where he says "the process of doing your second draft is the process of making it look like you knew what you were doing all along."
That has been echoing in my head for weeks. Even while I was writing my first draft for NaNoWriMo, this was on repeat. I want my second draft to feel more like a story, more like a novel. My first draft, while it has the main idea, is definitely more telling instead of showing. Changing that has been my main goal of draft two.
And so far, I'm loving my second draft. I think it flows better, my characters have more distinct voices and personalities. I'm having a lot of fun! I'm taking notes as I go for draft 3, writing down every idea I want to explore later in the story that I didn't explore in the first draft. More complex character relationships that I want to flush out. Landscapes and towns that I need to describe better. There's a lot. And I love that. I love it.
My goal is to finish my second draft by the end of December. I'm giving myself some leeway, of course, because life happens and I can't always control it. If the end of December isn't realistic, then I want to have it done by the end of January 2020. Once I finish the second draft, I plan on printing it out (for the first time!), just to have and to hold it. I'll let it rest, like you do with any good steak, and go through it with fresh eyes. Make my edits and changes in draft three, and if I feel ready by then, I may send it out to some beta readers (if I can recruit some). My ultimate goal is to be done with this novel by the end of 2020, and perhaps start querying it in 2021.
Those are real years y'all. I can't believe it either. The '20s are coming back (get your flapper dresses out). I think the '20s are going to be good. I'll have a complete novel done and hopefully on its way to being published, either traditionally or by myself. And just having that in my mind, makes me want to sit down and keep writing. I'm going to go do that now.
Happy writing y'all!!
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