Gettin' right back to where we started from...

[rj_anderson]

After struggling with my writing for the last six months, I've come to the conclusion that even though I learned a few useful things from First Draft in 30 Days, overall it's done me a great deal more harm than good.

Yes, it taught me how to construct a functional plot outline, and reminded me of all the diverse elements I need to consider when writing a book. But at the same time, it made me paranoid about my writing method, and worried that it wasn't efficient enough to sustain a professional career. Since then I've been staggering from one unrealistic goal to another, feeling more like a failure all the time, and getting very little pleasure out of the writing process as a result.

First I tried Fast Draft, or as near to it as I could get -- 2000 words a day for a month, with little or no revision. And from that experience I learned that while Fast Draft may be very useful for writers who have difficulty outlining or finishing stories, it is not useful to me. I wrote 50,000 words on Touching Indigo during that time, but I nearly burned myself out in the process, and came very close to hating the book and my characters as a result. And so far hardly any of those words have made it into the second draft.

At that point I realized that I needed to go back to my old, slow-but-thorough method of writing a sentence, deleting it, rewriting it, rearranging it, writing the next sentence, deleting it and the first one, rewriting them both and so on, until I had a scene that was as good as I knew how to make it at that point in time. And the next day I would go back over that scene and tweak it before starting fresh on the next scene -- all things that the other, hyper-efficient methods had been telling me not to do, at least not on the first draft. And who knows, perhaps they're right that revising as you go wastes a lot of time and effort, but personally I can't feel happy about moving forward unless I'm proud of what I've accomplished so far -- and that requires quality and attention to detail, not just wordcount.

But I still couldn't let go of the wordcount idea. After all, wasn't it important to have Goals? And not to waste a moment of my precious writing time? Surely, all I needed was to find the right wordcount for me, something that would take into account my natural pace as a writer but still give me pride in having met my daily goal. So I tried writing 900 words a day, then 750 words a day, then 500, dutifully reporting my counts on a daily basis. But more often than not, I ended up writing fewer words than I thought I should, and feeling like a failure as a result.

So I'm getting off the wordcount bandwagon. From now on, my only goal is to write for at least two hours every day, and quit when I'm reasonably satisfied with what I've got, whether it's 1000 words or 500 or only 50. After all, despite what all the efficiency experts say, it's always worked for me before. I wrote my first novel There Came a Traveller (120K) in six months, the first version of Knife (85K) in eight months, and the original Darkness and Light trilogy (110K) in about a year (including the gaps between, when I wasn't even sure there would be another story let alone how long it would be). To me that proves that even if I'm "wasting" a lot of effort polishing paragraphs and scenes to a high gloss only to throw them out on the next revision, it can't be holding me back that much. So forget other people's ideas of efficiency, I'm going back to what works for me.

And there's one thing I've really been missing, the thing that has always kept me motivated and encouraged me to keep writing when I'd otherwise be tempted to slack off or quit -- but I'll save that for tomorrow's post.

Comments

[olugbemisola.livejournal.com]

I think that I use a similar process, and recently got that book to help me speed things up. So far, the detailed plot outline idea is helpful, but most of the word count, goals, etc. aren't me at all, and I was down about it; I'm not a fast drafter at all. I feel a bit better now reading this. Glad you're sticking with what works for you, and it certainly seems to have worked well!

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's hard, isn't it, when the people advocating these methods sound so very sure that they will work for everyone? They may not mean to come across that way, but somehow, they nearly always do.

[newport2newport.livejournal.com]

I tried using a word count goal, too, but I wrote myself into a ditch -- every day! For me, it's easier and more rewarding to measure my progress by other means, most important among them the fact that I feel good about the quality of the words I've written, not the quantitative word count.

I'm looking forward to the big reveal about the mysterious Other Thing.

[yahtzee63.livejournal.com]

I'm betting right now I know what the other thing is, b/c I've felt the lack too --

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

WHERE ARE MY PEEPS

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

I don't think I could write without revision - anyway some always comes in because I write first in longhand then type it into the computer while I can still remember what it says. There have been so many occasions when I've said "no, that doesn't work at all" and if I'd gone any further there would have been masses of wasted work.

No offence to the people who told you to do that, but it sounds a bit "painting by numbers" to me. Surely what counts is how much useful stuff has been produced at the end of the time, not arbitrary figures on the way through? I think you are very sensible to go with what works for you - "Thou Shalt Not Tamper with a Working Program".

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

World without end, amen. :)

[debiwrites.livejournal.com]

I credit the First Draft in 30 Days method with helping me get my novels onto paper. But! I write at my own pace. No word count goals or journals of word counts (unless I just want to see how much I've written).

The part that works for me is the outline. Once I have that outline, the first draft comes. Sure, I change the outline as I go and "new things" happen/pop up/etc. while the characters move through the story. To me, the outline is "liquid" and change to fit whatever mold I tell it to. But, boy without the outline, I would be writing myself into corners everyday!

Of course, each of us has to write in the manner that makes US efficient. Obviously, that method made you very inefficient (even if only in your own eyes). Having an outline makes my writing efficient. Having to write a specific number of words everyday makes you inefficient.

Congratulations on finding YOUR method. Keep going!

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm finding having an outline very helpful as well -- and I do credit First Draft and the Snowflake Method with teaching me how to construct a working outline, even if it ends up changing as I write. No regrets there!

[olmue.livejournal.com]

The thing is, revision has to be done sometime. The fast draft philosophy prefers to put that off to a later date. But if you're revising as you go, when you're done, you're done. I can't see what's wrong with that.

I was the person who wrote my research paper index cards and outlines AFTER the paper was done, and um, the painting by numbers description is um, an accusation I can sympathize with. OTOH, I do find it easier to write with a word goal in mind. With time, I just look at the screen for two hours. But you have to find what works for you.

And I hope you're getting the love for your characters back!! I loved what I read of Finding Indigo.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much, Rose -- you are always such an encouragement!

[alawston.livejournal.com]

I think that ideas like First Draft are great for beginners, first-time novel attemptees and that kind of thing. They are brilliant for getting people into the habit of writing. I think they fall down when you're already writing by habit, and when you've got several novel-length works under your belt.

Ultimately, creativity doesn't lend itself to efficiency - and you've got the only thing that can sustain a professional writing career, a two-book contract with a major publisher.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think you're right. Thanks.

[tybalt-quin.livejournal.com]

I needed to go back to my old, slow-but-thorough method of writing a sentence, deleting it, rewriting it, rearranging it, writing the next sentence, deleting it and the first one, rewriting them both and so on, until I had a scene that was as good as I knew how to make it at that point in time.

That's exactly how I write, but then I am pathologically incapable of leaving something until it's at a point where I can live with it.

Re wordcounts, they never worked for me because if I didn't hit them I'd feel like a failure. Instead I now measure progress in terms of where I've got to in my plot structure. Now I'm working to a more detailed structure, I know that I want to hit X scene by Christmas, which feels more objective and also means that if I don't hit it, I can see where and why I haven't made it ... That's the theory, anyway ...

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

What does "sustain a professional career" mean? I mean, is there some time limit in which the publishers / readers forget about you and you have to start all over again as a new author? Because otherwise if it's not for eating money, as long as you do feel like you're accomplishing something why rush?

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

is there some time limit in which the publishers / readers forget about you and you have to start all over again as a new author?

Realistically, this is not very likely, I agree. My anxiety is free-floating, rather than rooted in awareness of an actual deadline I am in danger of missing. I just dread the thought of somehow getting so far behind that I can't catch up. But admittedly, I've never missed a deadline in my life...

[kerravonsen]

I remember you mentioning ages ago that you'd encountered an SF writer (was it Emma Bull?) who said that they wrote in the same way you do -- the "polish as you go" method. And she was a published author! So there!

It works for you, therefore do it that way. Play to your strengths, and get that scintillating polish into your words. Enjoy yourself.

the important thing is you tried it and learned something

[becominghuman.livejournal.com]

It was a worthy experiment. It's important to have an experimental method (in any field of endeavour) that is capable of recognizing whether something worked as it should, or not, and whether it's a move forward or backward. I hope I have your courage whenever it is that I decide to get serious about writing every day. You tried it. And you're a better writer now because of it, even if it doesn't work for you.

W

[ravensnape.livejournal.com]

As a reader of your works rather then a writer, such as the above lot looks to be, I'd say go with what you know! Go with what's comfortable. When you force yourself are you happy with the end result?

[infiniteviking]

I always felt like a rat when I didn't meet some weird wordcount goal, but when I did meet the goals, I seldom liked what I'd written. Besides, it feels too much like writing essays. XD

Good luck with the motivation! If ever (as can sometimes happen) a day's writing time consists of mostly rereading and scribbling down a few plot details and getting excited about the story, that's perfectly productive.

[my_daroga]

This is very interesting. I did NaNoWriMo last year, and it was a really interesting exercise. I didn't get anything I want to publish out of it, but it got me moving. Even if it was really frustrating.

I'm not sure "efficiency" is the goal for every writer, you know?