Finish the Book, Already...

I'm currently at a point where I don't know much about editing, and I've decided to do something about that.  Along those lines, I decided to try out Holly Lisle's Crash Revision Course, which she is offering for an extremely good price right now ($5) (And yes, that is my affiliate link, so to be honest, if you use that to register for any of Holly's courses or materials, I get some sort of kickback, but I don't know what that is).  Anyway, I am reading through the materials now and it is at a minimum a good start for me to getting a game plan on revising a novel, though I think that it is going to take substantially longer than seven days to get a novel revised.  Still, I think it is definitely working towards my goal of getting a defined and repeatable editing process.  Hopefully that will let me work through the stacks of unpolished novels in my own personal slushpile.

While I have yet to figure out the editing, I am getting a good grasp on one thing: writing first drafts.  I have four first drafts completed, and one that I abandoned without the big climactic scene because I wanted to make it work differently and it was too mired in the details.  In addition, I am only a few thousand words away from finishing the first draft of White Rock, which will bring my slushpile up to just under six.  So, while I have struggled with working on it recently, I have picked up again, and am still on target to finish the draft sometime in early May.

Since May was my intiial goal, when I picked the novel back up in February, it is good for me to still be headed towards that same timeframe, even with the fits and starts that I have had in keeping at it.  If I had to relate that to my prior draft-writing experiences, I would put the immovable deadline as my primary motivator.  Something about having a date out there, be it from an editor or job, self-imposed, via NaNoWriMo, or some other method, sets up both a schedule of pacing and accomplishment that allows you to work towards a goal.  Of course, the writing life I like to imagine having, of throwing a few thousand words a day down, is not really the one I end up with.  Instead, I'm an insane binge writer, procrastinating until just days before my deadline and then cramming down ten thousand words in a session, driving myself half insane in the process only to be completely unable to write for several weeks afterwards.  That said, I still manage to make it all complete by the locked down drop dead date.  The key for me here is to set a date and stick with it, and for me to make it a rational date that I can actually hit with a reasonable target.

The other thing I have found to be true is that it is just about impossible to write when you are doing other things than writing.  Whether you outline obsessively or freewrite organically, whether you binge write as I do every November or trickle out a thousand words or two a week like I am doing now, you have to sit in front of your paper or laptop or typewriter or Alphasmart or iPhone or BlackBerry and write.  Words do not magically transcribe themselves from brain to paper or file.  You have to put them there.  Others call it "Butt In Chair" and that's a pretty good description, though your chair can be the floor or the bed or whatever, and I am sure you could write standing up or with dictation software while riding a bicycle or something, generally sitting down with a keyboard-equipped device is the most common.

Don't underestimate the power of treats.  I always will put some sort of tangible (small) reward at the end of a met deadline.  If you can suffer the delayed gratification, it makes you feel like you are working towards something.  What I do is to select something that I intend to get anyway (and would most likely go out today and get), like a new keyboard, or a new flash drive, or something.  Then, although I would probably go get that today, I make a contract with myself that I will only get that upon completion of the goal that I have set.  (My current goal: Finish this draft and get the new desk that I plan to get anyway, but would like sooner than later).

Finally, you just have to finish.  You have to finish it.  You have to keep slugging through the slow parts, pacing through the fast parts, and coming up with the "What happens next?" answers until you (literally or figuratively) write "The End" on draft one.

Then you can add it to your slushpile and dread revising it, like I do, or you can go beyond what I've accomplished so far, pretty easily.

Other thoughts on finishing a novel first draft?