Week 11 - The Heart of the Matter

In a long forgotten book about writing fiction, I read a piece of advice that has stayed with me ever since I decided to write a novel.

Now prepare yourself, as I am going to share this with the world.

Here goes:

Write the first draft with your heart and the second with your head.

It is certainly a piece of advice that I have taken to heart. Before I began my 52 week writing plan, I was the living embodiment of prognostication being the thief of time. I was responsible for more drafts than the army in World War Two.

Unfortunately, my drafts seldom made it past the first few chapters. The equivalent of the Allied Fleet on D-Day making it out of Portsmouth Harbour and then thinking, “We’ll give that another go soon” and then promptly becoming distracted by Crosby & Hope’s latest Road film... You get the idea.

The problem was that I was stopping too often to check that I wasn’t contradicting myself and that the plot was tighter than a pre-ghosts Scrooge. I was so far from writing with the wind in my hair, that a level of dust only previously seen on a student’s Alcohol Free Drinks Guide, had begun to build up on my book.

And then I read that quote...

It was a real epiphany. For the past 11 weeks, I have done just that and the result has been a revelation. This morning, nestled on a corner table in Starbucks (why is it that writing with a laptop isn’t the same in a Mark One cafe?), I finished chapter 17. That’s 10 chapters in 10 weeks.

Of course, I’m not saying that they are flawless - in fact, they have more “flaws” than a tower block - but the simple fact is that they are there.

As Kate Mosse says in week 11’s tip, book editors these days do not expect to edit; they expect the manuscript to arrive in near-perfect condition. Fine. But that is what the second draft is for. That’s the time to write with your head.

In the heady days of the first draft, put your foot on the pedal, open all the windows, and drive at full speed.

There are no speed cameras on First Draft Highway.