first-draft blues

You just experienced the first-draft blues. Don’t panic, I have a solution.

This question popped up with a new writer recently, and I decided to share my response here (it could apply to any creative skill; art and music too):

Writing is a hard gig. Take a break. The reasons for writing the book will return once you have had some distance from it.

I am still having to force myself not to delete my work even by 2nd or 3rd draft. I hate the book by the end of the 1st and usually think its awful. But that is the bane of the “creative” – we must learn to ignore our emotions after the main creative process is over and the real hard work and chore begins – making it readable/enjoyable for others.

I think people don’t understand how “creativity” works and everyone is different. You have to learn how to work to your particular nature. Well done, you have discovered your 1st draft threshold. Now go be creative on something else to re-fire your creativity and distract your mind. Or take a holiday and come back and read it again in a couple of months when you have forgotten it, and then do 2nd draft. And after do the same process at the end of that one too when you go into emotional reaction at the end of the creative cycle. This is normal, by the way.

A decent book – for most of us – takes a few years to finish. The 5th or 6th draft is usually where it starts to be what I wanted it to be then I often have to do another draft to catch mistakes and make minor changes after getting an unbiased reader to give me feedback (without arguing with them defensively). More than 7 drafts from start to end is not unusual. Less probably is, if you expect to end up with a product you can be proud of and is readable.

I hate the process. I could not even finish a book until I was 50 years old. A Chinese proverb – that I don’t recall precisely – said people should not write before 50 anyway.

Some rules to live by:

  1. NEVER destroy your work however much you hate it.
  2. If you hate it, stop working on it, wait 2 or 3 months – enough time to lose all emotional attachment to it, then revisit it. Then apply #1.
  3. Learn about the emotional ups and downs of your nature and your particular timing of creative process. Mine works to 3’s: 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months. I take breaks, or try to at those points.
  4. Remember there is being a “Creative” and there is “Selling” your work, and those two things need to be kept very seperate because the industry is a cold merciless beast that does not care about your emotions or creativity, only $ and product. Don’t make the mistake of thinking “creativity” and “the industry” can marry. You will lose to the industry every time. Therefore tl;dr: do it for the love. DO IT FOR THE LOVE. not for the sales or the money or the glory, because not many people get those from writing (or music, and I do both).
  5. DO THIS FOR THE LOVE of creating something you are proud of. In the end that requires hating it for a while – this is part of my creative cycle and I have learnt to allow for it. I have one book has taken me 16 years and its still not finished and only 60K words. I cannot tell you how many times that book has got me raging. But I know I’ll finish it eventually.
  6. You will come to eventually realise there is a knowing when a book is done. About draft 7, I noticed it happens. It’s actually done. And I experience a massive emotional drop then too and have to deal with it. I thought it would be joyous celebration, but no, I get depressed. The cure? Start my next work right away and forget about that book it is no longer my business. It is born and now has a life of its own.

    You aren’t just learning to write, you are learning about yourself as a writer. It’s a long road.

    Good luck!