First Drafts

Your first draft is going to suck.
Possibly your 4th and 5th one too.
I probably revise about 3 X before I even let my beta readers read the manuscript.
Then after I’ve received their comments and criticisms I edit again a couple of times before sending it to my agent who also offers in-depth commentary.
By the way, thank goodness for the thick skin I have developed since my first critiques.
Those flayed my soul.
But now I know that anything anyone tells me (well not anyone. Not some crazed person off the street like the guy with all the bells and the long robes in the center of town. But one of my trusted readers…) will make the manuscript better.
After my agent and I have polished the manuscript to our mutual satisfaction, only then do we send it to my editor.
And she suggests more changes. In fact with every fresh pair of eyes there will be changes. And each time I’ll wonder, “why didn’t I notice that?”.

So let’s see, on average we’re looking at probably ten, eleven rewrites per manuscript.
And it’s not because I’m a bad writer.
And yes, I am as lazy as the next person. And it still takes an enormous effort to make myself readdress a manuscript that I could have sworn was done already. But once I find my stride I remember that it’s just a matter of finding the right word and putting it in the right place, and removing all the wrong words.
It gave me a great gladdening in my heart when I read that Philip Pullman’s first drafts are complete sh*t as far as he’s concerned.

So you may feel like doing this :

but please don’t.
Because most likely you have this:

Every revision, every word considered and saved or discarded makes the writing that much better.
It’s all part of the process.

Speaking of which. I am on deadline for final revisions so I will not be blogging much in this first part of June.