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[spitkitten]

Originally published at spitkitten dot com. You can comment here or there.

I’ve been staring into the abyss of draft one of the novel-and it’s been staring right back at me (thx, Nietzsche!). I’m losing the staring contest.

One of the most brutal truths of writing is: sometimes you have to throw away every word you’ve spent days/weeks/months

Comments

[buscemi]

I wonder if you're being too hard on yourself. Maybe you just need to take some time away from the novel?

[carolryles]

If it's any consolation, this is exactly how it is happening with my novel. Finished my first draft last year. Sorted out the core of the story and main characters and pov. Realized it wasn't going to work in its present form and the only way to make it work was to start draft 2 from scratch. I'm very happy with what's happening to it now, and am constantly surprised at the extra twists and turns I'm discovering alone the way. And with the benefit of hindsight, the drafting is happening a lot quicker.

[photosexual]

And the part that makes me envious here is how you've come across 75,000 words in the process of writing. Whereas I dream of writing and improving it all the time, and never do. Writers write. You've got to do it all the time, and this you know. And if I may switch metaphors a moment to something I know a bit more about, photographers photograph. And for that stack of negatives (I'm all last millennium, yo...) that hits the floor for the half dozen that made it, we keep doing what we're doing, start again, and build upon it. Suddenly, those 75,000 words, or those 1800 frames (multiples of 36 per roll...) all become the groundworn for that collection of words or images that appear some weeks or months down the road, and they make the people stop and stare and stay. Riveted