First drafts

Hello to all!

Why oh why do we think that the first draft that comes from our typing or writing is perfect? Okay, we live in a very busy world, but absolutely everything in it does not come fully formed when first it is created. Like pure ore, a lot of what is mined is no use at all and only weakens the pure stuff.

Using free writing may seem to be a waste of time and energy, but really it is not. You or I may think it is complete gibberish when it first appears, and it usually is. But, like a ball of string, if you pull the available thread that is seen loose, the whole tangle will eventually unravel and we have a whole new string to create with.

First writings are just that: the first draft. Over the years, our skill in reading has changed, and now, where we used to either gasp in delight at the many, many adjectives that can be used to describe a sunset, or run away in horror( 'purple prose' I believe were the words used to describe such passages), we did once have the capacity to at least skim these parts.

Not any more. Now, we want the meat of what is written available immediately. Our patience has shrunk. Besides, long paragraphs of this type of writing do not display well on the Kindle, Nook or anywhere else. I am guilty of writing some stories as Agatha Christie would have written them: almost dreamily. As a matter of fact, some of her romance novels were slow and dreamy. Today's reader probably will get impatient with them. Some of my novels are not long, but they have this almost dreamy air, although they are mysteries.

But this does not evade the point that the first things that come from your brain are first drafts. They may only need a word or two altered, maybe to make it stronger, or they may need a complete overhaul, but please do not send that first thing out of your mind to any place you are hoping to get published or paid. It takes many years to write something decent, so the masters of the art say, and writing is a never-ending learning skill. Take a walk back through some of your older stuff. Some of mine has been so disgusting, I have wanted to use it(shredded) for garden compost. Don't do that. EVER. Okay, it stinks, it's lousy, even the cockroaches and mice won't eat it, but there is ALWAYS a kernel or two of the beginnings of something good in it.

So, much as it may make you feel like being sick, trawl through these first drafts and look for those nuggets. Dig them out and try again. After all, some okay ebooks have found themselves cobbled together like this, and do sell quite well. Just remember, these are first drafts. Like a mentor of mine reiterates, " You need to make mud first, before you can make a mud brick." So, use these first drafts to help you write something good.

Although the content mills around want X-amount of articles written in Y-hours, you still should try to chose those mills where the clients at least give you half an hour for 500 words. This won't give you time to write a Shakespearean play, but it will give you some leeway to tidy up. Another shock I had was seeing a very amateur piece of mine under my byline on a website. I cringed. How on earth had I ever thought that was good enough for that place? Thankfully, the Web is quick to dispose of these mistakes, unlike a lousy novel I once wrote. After two years, I got so tired and sick of the negative comments about the poor thing, I took it out of publication. Years later, having sort of recovered from the criticism, I reread it, wondering what all the fuss was about. The novel was 175 pages long. It took me the first page to mentally apologise to all those poor people who had paid good money for it. It was and is utter tripe, although the grammar and spelling are good. Otherwise, to critique it would take ME, its writer, 100 pages.

One day, I will rewrite it, I hope. The idea was good, but I was very young, and simply fluked a publisher, who went out of business quickly. Both of us, I hope, learned good lessons from our experiments. In the case of the publisher, an expensive one, but I will always be grateful to them for giving me a chance. I was by no means their only client, but writers in Australia in those days were not considered very good for anything. It was a mammoth battle to get anything published, unless you were very well-known, or an overseas writer.

So give yourself the best chance you can. It really is a shock to look back at some old stuff and wonder how you ever had the temerity to send it off for publishing. But it is all good. :)