first drafts. #1stdraftdiary

Waterstone’s! 🙂

And so, the first draft continues… Usually I try and write more than 2000 words a day so I can take a day off here and there, but that is stretching my limits at the moment. This first draft is proving harder than the others I’ve done, and I think it’s because it’s been so full on since signing contracts. It’s my fourth book written or edited within 18 months & the last of the constant deadlines – and I’m still doing events and promotion. I’m loving it, but I’m not certain that I can keep it up this time. Maybe I will have to find a new way to work to get this book delivered in time? Here goes…

#1stdraftdiary Day 7: Today is, surprisingly, a breeze, so the seven days up to now must have given me momentum. I make use of it while it’s here! And somehow a giant octopus slips into the story. Word count: 14,000

#1stdraftdiary Day 8: Zero. I organise my events for Belfast Book Festival this week, and answer interview answers. The festival comes first time wise, so has to take priority. When you do children’s events, you’re performing, so you have to be watertight – and events change depending on the age of the children and the group size. I have two events in Belfast with 80 teenagers each event, plus a family fun day hour and an Eason’s event to prepare. This means, planning, preparation, timing, props, practicing for each. It takes time – like anything, when I do an event, I want to do it well. That means enabling the kids to get lots out of the time spent together – and this requires thought. Word count: still 14,000

#1stdraftdiary Day 9: I awake to that niggling, judgmental voice, but beat it away with gusto. I’m starting 2,000 words behind but kind words from Jane Mitchell and CJ Black (thanks lovelies) help me get going. I realise I’ve forgotten Winston in three chapters, so I spend some time adding him in. I reach my word count easily today and still have steam so I continue on and surpass it – 3,900 words in total and doesn’t feel like it at all. One of the really good days. Word count: 17,900

(And an unplanned intermission…

I also cheated & took a trip to Giant’s Causeway – somewhere I’ve wanted to go since I was seven years old!!!

#1stdraftdiary Day 10 (take 1): Zero. I had to freelance during the ten hour journey to Belfast Book Festival so no words written. Will try again tomorrow.

#1stdraftdiary Day 10 (take 2): Zero. By the time I finished my social media clients and have prepped for & then completed three events today, there is no energy left for words. I decide to pause for the Belfast Book Festival as I have two full days of travel and three days of events. With the best will in the world, I’ll never get through my various freelance stuff, attend events and do my own events as well as my first draft.)

#1stdraftdiary Day 10 (Take 3): Pausing was a good idea – I’m feeling energized by all the great events and festival atmosphere but also pretty tired from the ten hour journey home! As I expected, today was a bit of a slog – but I ploughed through the words and got back on track. Feeling relieved! Word count: 20,002

#1stdraftdiary Day 11: With freelance and other responsibilities today, I don’t even get started on my first draft until 8.30pm and by this time, I can actually feel my brain throbbing. I doubt brain-throb is a good sign but two hours later and my word count hits the spot – just 100 words short. Happy to leave it there. Sometimes, you have to know when to stop pushing. Word count: 21,900

#1stdraftdiary Day 12: I make writing the main focus today, before anything else, like it should be. The only interruption is a live radio interview at 12.15pm – and I’m only 500 words behind my word count at this point. I love radio, it’s a really nice way to chat about books, and so afterwards I’m excited and a little giddy so I switch to admin for a while, chasing up invoices and writing more. By 2pm, I’ve hit 24,400 words. I’ve passed my expectation and have plenty left in me. A medium-sized freelance project (40x 500 word articles with a two week deadline) comes in, so I decide to really go for it today and get ahead if I can. I also became a Patron of Reading today, so I’m celebrating . Word count: 26,400

#1stdraftdiary Day 13: Zilch. Today was spent travelling 3 hours to Cork city for two x1 hour school events in Waterstone’s (they treated me 5 star – such darlings), then a meeting, then a three hour journey home. The events went really well – the pupils were fantastic. Interested, excited, inquisitive – big thumbs up! Word count: still at 26,400.

#1stdraftdiary Day 14: And so, the day was marred by the shock result in the UK, but I decided to use it to my advantage and write the call to arms scene that I need before a battle. I rely on nature today to keep my head straight – the sea, birds, flora, vegtable garden. In the end, I write fast and the words are not completely awful. I stop the moment I reach the word count, leaving not just a chapter, but a sentence, unfinished. Word count: 28,000

Summary: word count on track, amazing schools events and a festival thrown in – but I’m feeling at the end of my energy reserves and I’m finding this difficult to admit. Let’s hope I can keep it up.

FullSizeRender (52) People regularly ask me how I write a first draft in a month, and I mumble my way through a barely comprehensible answer but in truth, I don’t really know. I just do it. And so, this inability to answer what should be an easy enough question has inspired a new social media project –#1stdraftdiary – that I hope you’ll find interesting.

You see, when I write, and I get to the end, I forget all the work that went into it, the challenges and difficulties, the highs and moments of clarity; they all fade into a big fuzz. I don’t remember all the revisions or the edits, and by the time it’s actually finished – as in, been through the editing process, the copy edits, the proofs – I remember nothing of what went on to get it to that point. All I am certain of is that the first draft was written in a month, because this is the approach that works for me.

And so, I decided to try something new (to me anyway): a record of writing a first draft in a month, in real time. Check out the hashtag #1stdraftdiary on twitter to see what I mean (you don’t have to have a twitter account to follow the hashtag)!

Now, this is by no means a competitive project. There’s far too much of that around already and as authors we have enough to strive for/fail at/beat ourselves up about; it’s simply an experiment, a reaction to a question I repeatedly get asked and have no proper way of responding to.

#1stdraftdiary is an honest record of word counts and feelings and barriers and challenges, and hopefully it will amount to something that will reveal to me, not just other interested parties, what writers can go through as they write. All writers are different, so it’s just one lone ranger going for it, but it might help trigger or kick start something for someone else, or consolidate something in their own writing process. Who knows? I certainly don’t. After all, I can’t even explain my own writing process!

On twitter, I’m keeping the #1stdraftdiary chat writing specific, but I’m also going to blog on here and writing.ie about some of the other stuff that goes on behind the scenes during the day/week and how writing fits into my overall schedule.

It feels a little revealing and may turn out a big horrible mess with my usual process failing me but hey –that’s all part of it. As writers, we’ve got to be brave, right?

I hope you’ll interact with me as I bare my poor writing soul – and if you like the idea and you’re starting a WIP, why not join in too? I’d love to see how other people work too!