The euphoria of finishing a draft is intoxicating! There’s nothing quite like it.
The pages are neatly printed out and stacked. I feel like I’ve just come up for air, gasping from being so long under water.
As always, there was blood, sweat and sleepless nights leading up to the finish.
I forget that this is true of each finish, each stage of the writing process (outline, first draft, second, third … sixth).
Steel is forged by fire: a series of deadlines helps heat things up. An approaching long holiday can act as an effective motivation to finish. The most definitive deadlines are the ones when I have to give a manuscript to an agent or editor. A literary competition could work, as well.
Like preparing for a final exam, an athletic event or a recital, such deadlines force me to give it everything I’ve got. Again and again and again.
And so, here it is: the 4th draft of The Next Novel! There will be a 5th and a 6th, no doubt, before my publisher even sees it (and then likely there will be a 7th and an 8th, as well). The 8th will likely be the “downhill draft”—the polishing and fiddling. That’s always such a pleasure.
But right now, it’s still heavy lifting. For this 4th, the changes were major: a switch from 3rd to 1st person point-of-view, a major character eliminated, new scenes in, old scenes out. (The manuscript is 90,000 words, and the cut file is 60,000!) It’s possible that the 5th will be a significant re-vision as well.
But for now, it’s all all packaged up and ready to go to Fiona Foster—reader, writer, editor, reviewer, wise woman.
I feel like I’m on holiday—until I look at the wreckage of my office, the weeds in the garden, the overflowing in-box. Even so, I tackle them with euphoria.
How do you set deadlines for yourself?
I love this post. I love especially this line: ‘steel is forged by fire.’ Love that. And so true. Writing to me is always, necessarily, about fire. DT
Dawn, thank you so much. I’m creatively nourished right now by your novel, GAME OF SECRETS. Lots of fire!
Congratulations! I set deadlines when I want some time off with my kids–so it’s usually around Christmas and summer.
Yes, family time is definitely a deadline for me. I try to aim for a few days before so I’m not totally ragged when the festivities begin.
I hope it goes brilliantly. And easily.
Know how you feel! I had three years to write my master’s thesis and achieved that time limit (just). Then two overseas examiners had to be found, the thesis read and marked, then it came back to me for rewriting, then back to an Australian examiner to make sure the changes were made as requested.
At the end of 3.5 years, I felt like I had given birth to a very large baby. But the aftermath was worse. I walked around the house every night for three months, wondering what to do with myself :(
So true, Helen — I woke this morning a little bewildered. What was your master’s on?