I’ve been working steadily on my next book for the past week. It’s up to over 25,000 words, and the story seems to shape itself more with every day’s work (it also tends to shapeshift, but that’s all part of the process).

Despite this progress, it’s been hard to plow through because I’m reconciling with this being a first draft. Having completed a novel and several short stories, I figured I’d be familiar with the feeling of stumbling around an apartment looking for the light switch that comes with trying to write a first draft. I’ve even written about that feeling before.

Yet each day I open my document, start writing, and wonder why I can’t just magically have a complete story, one with all my questions answered and one without any bracket notes or paragraphs that basically summarize everything as opposed to narrating. It has all the things I see when I revisit my old drafts of Please Give. I know the words will eventually shape into the story I want. But my impatient self wonders, why can’t I have this now? I’ve done this before — I should be able to do this immediately.

But the truth is, I haven’t done this before — not with this story, at least. I think that’s what I forget when I get discouraged at my words feeling clunky or incomplete. It’s brand new to me, and I need to familiarize myself with the apartment and memorize its corners before I can just walk through and flick on the light.

I came across a quote on Twitter that helped put things in perspective for me, and helped me feel a little less discouraged at the state of writing my draft:

I’m #writing a first draft and reminding myself that I’m simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles.
SHANNON HALE#amwriting #writetip pic.twitter.com/IPsN4DS5Ph

— Jon Winokur (@AdviceToWriters) January 31, 2018

This is a perfect summary of the feeling I get when I write a first draft, that I’m tossing things haphazardly into Word and nothing’s making sense. But it will — and one can’t build the castle without piling in the sand first.

I want to close with my own interpretation of that feeling, inspired by one of my favorite TV shows, The Golden Girls:

Went through LRT during this morning’s writing session. I always feel like I’m writing one of Rose Nylund’s longer, more tangent-filled St. Olaf stories when I write a first draft; especially a chapter detailing things in the characters’ pasts. #AmWriting

— Sonora (@sonorawrites) January 31, 2018

It’s only in the later drafts where you need to become like Dorothy and yell, “Get to the point, Rose!”

— Sonora (@sonorawrites) January 31, 2018