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Q. Should I Keep Writing?

A.  Yes.  You should. I know the first draft is awful, and even as you’re writing it, you can see you’ll have to cut most of it, but go forward anyway.  Get to the end.

Q.  But why, why?  It’s so bad!  It doesn’t even make sense.

A.  That’s just what first drafts are.  They’re painful and ugly.  They wander down dead ends and come out smelling like old fish.

Q.  I thought I liked my main character, but now, she’s just, I don’t know, hopelessly cliché.

A.  I know. And her dialogue is unbelievable and stilted, isn’t it?

Q.  Yes! Or the characters talk in circles and get nowhere.  And then I try to add conflict, and it’s just like guns and knives dropping everywhere.  Who cares?

A.  Believe me.  I know.

PondFeb2013Q.  And it’s so shallow!  This book has no depth whatsoever.  It has no point.

A.  Have you added magic yet?  A flying pony?

Q.  Oh, my god.  How did you know?  It’s terrible.  Just terrible!

A.  Yeah.  That’s your first draft.  It’s going to be horrible.  The worst thing you’ve ever seen.

Q.  Why am I doing this?  I could be looking for a real job.  I could be folding laundry.  Nobody’s ever going to want to read this.

A.  That’s not true.  Your mother will want to read it.

Q.  (Moans, grumbles, shreds hair)

A.  Look.  Quit complaining.  Nobody’s making you write this book.

Q.  But I want to!

A.  Then just do it.  It’s going to be bad.  Really, really horribly stinking bad.  Nobody fully understands why, but that’s just how first drafts are.  You force yourself to get a draft down, whether its 120 or 250 or 450 pages.  You get the thing down, and then you go back to the beginning and read it to see what’s there.

Q. 450 pages!  You can’t be serious.  I have 64!

A. Do you want to be a writer or not?

Q. I do.  I guess.

A. Do you?

Q. (snivels) Okay, I do.

A. Then you have to write.  You have to finish the first draft.  You have to get it down on the page.  Nobody can do it for you.  You have to do the job.

Q. But what if it’s never good enough?  What if I put in all this work and it’s never, ever good enough to get published?

A. Would that break your heart?

Q. I think it would.

A. Then let me tell you a secret.  You’re a good writer.  You’re a really good writer.  There’s something about your characters or your voice or your descriptions or your understanding of humanity that shows up in your work that nobody else can do.  You are the only one who can write the way you do.  The only one.  And you are brilliant.

Q. How do you know?

A. Because I can tell.  Because you care this much.  You have to have faith in yourself.  Plenty of writers who have already published books still have to bushwhack their ways through their first drafts, too.  It’s just what it takes.

Q. Do you promise this isn’t just a huge waste of time?

A. Ha! No, I don’t.  I don’t promise anything.  But I’ll tell you this.  You can do it.  You can go start the next scene.

Q. Just the next scene?

A. That doesn’t sound so hard, does it?  Just go start the next scene and see where it takes you.

Q. I could probably do that.

A. I thought so.  Don’t you have fun when you’re actually writing?

Q. Yes.  I mean, I used to, until I started worrying.

A. Quit worrying.  Let yourself have fun again.  You’re just telling a story.

Q. I’m just telling a story.  I like that.

A. Yep.  That’s all.  Just keep writing.  You can do it.

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