{"id":1400,"date":"2024-06-18T14:47:41","date_gmt":"2024-06-18T13:47:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/?p=1400"},"modified":"2024-06-18T14:47:42","modified_gmt":"2024-06-18T13:47:42","slug":"day-16-monthofblogging-june2024-monthofwriting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/2024\/06\/18\/day-16-monthofblogging-june2024-monthofwriting\/","title":{"rendered":"DAY 16 – #MonthOfBlogging #June2024 #MonthOfWriting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WHAT IS A FIRST DRAFT?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A first draft is a horrible thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The first draft of anything is sh*t.<\/p>\nErnest Hemingway<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Writing, and especially publishing, is filled with anachronistic terms and phrases. Like many industries, I\u2019m sure people use out-of-date phrases in order to heighten the mystique. It might even be used to exclude those who haven\u2019t been educated in the rarified atmospheres of \u2018good\u2019 universities. Might.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, the \u201cfirst draft.\u201d As one person said to me once, it\u2019s \u201ctelling yourself the story.\u201d And in a way, they\u2019re right. If you\u2019re writing a novel, or even a short story, you don\u2019t really know how it\u2019s going to look until you\u2019ve written it. I\u2019ve lost count of the number of times I\u2019ve been writing a full-length novel, and then realised that there\u2019s not enough \u2018story\u2019 in it to complete it, or that the story I had in my head isn\u2019t what\u2019s coming out in the manuscript. I\u2019m my own harshest critic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So let\u2019s say you\u2019ve fought these inner demons and doubts caused by imposter syndrome, and you\u2019ve finished the story. Brilliant! Send it off to be printed \/ entered into a competition?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Errr… NO!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remember Hemingway\u2019s statement, above. He knew a thing or two about writing did old Ernest. What you do is you put the story to one side – in a drawer, or closed off in a folder on your laptop. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

DON\u2019T LOOK AT IT!\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What this does is to give you, the writer, \u2018some distance\u2019 from your writing. This is a fact – if you turn to edit a story too quickly, your mind sees what you think that you, the writer, should<\/em> have written. Your mind \u2019sees\u2019 the manuscript you wrote in your head, and not what you put on paper \/ in a file.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How long should I put the manuscript away?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It depends. In theory, the longer the better. I\u2019ve come across old stories, written years ago, that I don\u2019t even recognise as mine! But how long you put the manuscript away is entirely up to you, and how well you can \u2019step away\u2019 from the writing, and what you intend to do with the story when it\u2019s finished, and whether that has a deadline to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And my key message – when you start reviewing your first draft, BE HONEST! Read it like you would any other piece of writing.<\/strong>
Are there spelling and punctuation mistakes? Don\u2019t assume an editor will fix them for you!
Does the opening spend too much time on description of landscapes or the weather?
Does the story move along at pace, or is it dreary and slow?
Does the key message of the story, the key theme, come through in the writing?
Does the ending round things up nicely, and provide a satisfying conclusion?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are just some of the questions you need to ask yourself before moving forward with the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AND DON\u2019T BE AFRAID TO DITCH THE STORY IF IT DOESN\u2019T WORK.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have done, MANY TIMES!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WHAT IS A FIRST DRAFT? A first draft is a horrible thing. The first draft of anything is sh*t. Ernest Hemingway Writing, and especially publishing, is filled with anachronistic terms and phrases. Like many industries, I\u2019m sure people use out-of-date phrases in order to heighten the mystique. It might even be used to exclude those […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,6,8,15,16,17],"tags":[70,73,46,108,109,54,71,25],"class_list":["post-1400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advice","category-inspiration","category-my-writing","category-thinking","category-writing","category-writing-on-writing","tag-advice","tag-beginner","tag-creativity","tag-first-draft","tag-manuscript","tag-success","tag-tips","tag-writing-2"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/BLOG-first-draft-mess-01.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5y3CH-mA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1400"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1402,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400\/revisions\/1402"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerald-hornsby.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}