<\/p>\n
Every book began with a first draft. And they were all flawed, riddled with typos, plot holes, cliches, and bad ideas.<\/p>\n
Even the greats. Even your favorites.<\/p>\n
Every once in a while you can find early drafts of big, important books, and they are almost always terrible. Sometimes they can offer insight into the creative process of the author, which can be interesting, but is not for the faint of heart.<\/p>\n
Working with a writers group, you read a lot of early drafts, and subject your fellow writers to a lot of yours. That\u2019s why it\u2019s easier to work in a group with some reciprocity. It\u2019s easier to let people see your ugly process if you\u2019ve seen theirs. You will feel naked and exposed, but so will they. It\u2019s like a less sexy but no less intimate version of lovemaking.<\/p>\n
To further extend the metaphor, writing tends to be more rewarding the more you sweat.<\/p>\n
So if you are reading early drafts, or producing your own and asking others to look at them, understand the feeling of vulnerability, leaving yourself open, being naked in front of a crowd. But understand that this is how all writers feel, and everybody\u2019s early draft needs work.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll leave you with the words of two literary giants:<\/p>\n
Ernest Hemingway, who reassured a new writer that \u201cthe first draft of anything is shit,\u201d and Canada\u2019s poet laureate Red Green, who tells us \u201cJust remember. I\u2019m pulling for you. We\u2019re all in this together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Every book began with a first draft. And they were all flawed, riddled with typos, plot holes, cliches, and bad ideas. Even the greats. Even your favorites. Every once in a while you can find early drafts of big, important books, and they are almost always terrible. Sometimes they can offer insight into the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,23,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-e-books","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":202,"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201\/revisions\/202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}