Going Backwards (and Retreat Update)

While many writers enjoy the exhilaration, creativity, and freedom of first drafts, I'm not one of them.

I felt that slew of emotions with the first two and half books in the "drop of blood" trilogy and then I hit some serious writer's block and abandoned the third for a few months.

By then, I had a contract with a small press and had begun the serious editing process. Watching my words take on the shape of what I had really meant to write was the real sense of satisfaction.

First drafts are not like that.

As are many "firsts" in life, I suppose.

All sense of polish and shine aren't the writer's friends in those early drafts. In order to get the words out, especially in such rapid fashion as I'm doing this week, you must resort to weak and clumsy and cliche - everything writers try to avoid.

Writing this way feels like going backwards. But you know the old saying.

But even as writers push forward, a part of them should remain comfortable with their own sloppy writing. During the drafting stage, it's important not to get hung up on phrasing, mood (except to simply state it), deep characterization and setting, the five senses, etc. until to, again, state the intention.

The clean-up comes later. But you can't clean-up a mess you didn't make. You can't prune a plant you didn't grow. You can't refine words you didn't write.

So for any writer out there (or anyone, really) in their same routine who thinks I'm currently sitting in a dreamy, caffeinated haze while swimming in my imagination, that's not happening.

But the words are happening. And I'll be very happy I wrote them when, next weekend, I want to spend Saturday editing a chapter I wrote this past week. And I'll be happy the following Saturday, too, when I want to do the same thing.

I'm happy now, too, of course. Happy that I work for a company that gives me vacation time. Happy for the opportunity to spend a week working on a goal. Happy for a family that supports my rather pointless writing and isn't spending too much luring me away from it. Happy for the calico cat who lets me have nearly have my desk chair.

Happy for the hot weather this week that makes it sensible to stay inside writing. And happy, of course, for coffee and imagination.

So am I hitting the goal?


All the even chapters of The Phoenix or fifteen chapters. This is first and foremost. And I started on it yesterday afternoon and wrote until my brain shut off at 9:30 p.m. (but I did have an extremely short night of sleep Thursday into Friday).

Finish formatting Lycanthropic Summer. Since I want to release it by October 1, this is important

Finish the last two chapters of Cornell Dyer and the Old Folks Home and copy edit it. My goal is three books a year. I'm just on the first one. So I'm way behind.

Finish formatting WriteOn Joliet's fourth anthology. This is even more first and foremost than The Phoenix.

Get the content Rebekah needs for a new website. Can't move forward without this. Better make it a priority.

Get Rebekah the photos she needs for the new Bertrand book. The goal is three a year. We released one last year. Again, way behind.

So far:

Nearly two chapter drafts of The Phoenix each day, and that's it.

Slightly behind, but yesterday was a day of intermittent interruptions and one health emergency for my oldest son.

But at this rate, I'll have all of the chapters of The Phoenix drafted by Saturday morning.

And I'll still have the weekend to finish the plan.

That is the plan from a Tuesday morning point of view.

Illustration by Kathleen Rose Van Pelt for "Bryony."