Your Monday mote
Write the mess
I’m going to say this in a very tidy way, which is ironic, as you will discover.
Your first draft will be a bit of a mess. Possibly a flaming one. And that's not just okay, it's essential. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself this week.
Someone reached out to me online for advice (that was their first mistake), to ask how they could move forward as their outline was so chaotic.
I told them to write the chaotic outline.
I told them to write the mess.
When I started writing my first novel earlier this year, I had visions of flowing prose, neat plot lines and characters so compelling they'd leap off the page in full costume.
What I got instead was a reasonably strong start, a wobbly structure, two characters with suspiciously similar names (of all the names in the world I gave them the same surname - go figure), and a middle section that was thinner than angel hair pasta.
At 28,000 words and counting I’m still going because I’ve learned that writing the mess is how you find the story.
Some days you’ll love what you’ve written. Some days you’ll want to throw your laptop into the sea. Both are normal. Usually, I can tell immediately if I’m going to keep a passage or not.
Writing isn’t a straight path, so if you wait for perfection you’ll never write at all. I’m a stickler when it comes to words, so for me, a messy manuscript is uncomfortable. Like wearing a really tight bra or watching a British sitcom from the Seventies.
It sometimes feels like failure-in-progress, so I’ve had to train myself to push on through.
Why? Because I’ve also learned that once I’ve got that dumpster fire of a first draft in the bag, it can lead to something extraordinary; a beginning.
A beautiful, chaotic, promising beginning.
So write the mess.
Write. The. Mess.
Lisa
I’ve updated my Summer Breeze playlist, so if you’re looking for an hour and a half of mostly chill vibes from the mind of a feral Gen-xer, check it out.
I paid for a manuscript assessment by Faber for my first draft. Mysteriously, they didn't tell me it was fabulous and a shoe-in for a CWA best first novel award.
One thing they did say, which I have passed on to members of my WhatsApp writing group, is that "The purpose of a first draft is to exist."
Give birth to that first draft (not easy) then work on bringing it up to be interesting, accomplished, witty and any other qualities you like in a novel.
Then send it out into the world and cross your fingers that it finds someone who likes it as much as you do.
Exactly that! It’s uncomfortable to be so messy but it’s also necessary.