It’s only been eight days since I finished the first draft of my current novel and already I’m second-guessing the method that got me to the end of the draft. I’m feeling anxious to dive in to revisions, though I’ll make myself wait the full month before I even look at it again. This is no different from the first two books. I always feel best when I’m working. What’s different this time is that I’m not entirely sure I need that full month away from the manuscript because my memory of it is hazy.
I wrote this draft in three months, rather than my usual year or more. I didn’t let myself edit as I went, no backtracking to tinker and tighten, no retracing my steps to undo a wrong choice. This moved me very quickly from beginning to end, but I’m afraid that speed might have kept me skimming along the surface too much. See…I don’t know the book like I knew the other two at this point. I can’t feel it the same way. Only eight days away and it’s a fever dream, already slipping away.
Maybe that habitual backtracking that I didn’t allow myself this time is my way of sinking into my characters and their stories. Maybe I was doing more than I realized as I poked around and rewrote and reconsidered. I’m not at all sure what I’m going to find when I pick it back up on March 20th.
It was an experiment, this attempt at speed. Whatever I’ve done can be undone or done more deeply in revisions. But still…my best work usually comes from my slow, blind first pass. What if I let the book this one had the potential to be slip away for the sake of an experiment? Probably not. And if so, I’ll live. But I’m nervous about it. I keep remembering something Michael Cunningham told me once, back in those golden MFA days. (Ah! Euphoric recall!) He said, “No good ever came of rushing.”
Godammit. I hope I don’t sit down to a horrific mess when I open that Scrivener file again.
You may be surprised
In CNF workshop, Greg Martin noted that a messy draft is often followed by a tight, shortened draft, which is followed by an opened draft. I admire you for shaking up your process to discover what works best!
I think it’s going to be great! You’re too g to go in there and think, wow! I wrote this?! That was brilliant!
But I question this whole waiting one month thing 🙂 I don’t know how you have the patience to wait that long! I usually give myself a week tops, then do a read through.
Still, I remember your tweets from when you were writing. I KNOW that you’ll find something really awesome there when you go back.
maybe you haven’t really rushed since you’re not done yet.
I think it’s okay to peek.
🙂
Heather, you temptress! A writer must have RULES, you know. One of mine is the one-month cooling off period.
Trust the process. It nearly always works if you give it a chance, don’t you think?
Stefani, yeah…see that’s the thing. This isn’t my usual process. I don’t have that confidence in it. I didn’t expect to feel this way, but…well…here it is. All shall be revealed when I unwrap the thing on the 20th, I suppose.
I am completely out of order in saying this, but I feel certain you will be pleasantly surprised. That’s not so say you won’t need to go back and deepen maybe more than in the past, but I have a feeling it’ll have the loose freshness that artists’ early sketches for large works tend to have, which is often lost in their refined, finished pieces.