Tuesday, April 1, 2014

On first drafts

I call them glorious messes. Some writers call them vomit drafts or some such, but I think that's not a good way to think about your unformed, crazy, beautiful work. 

Today I reached page 100. I have a heroin addict, an unsolved murder, and an affair with a younger man that all surprised me by showing up. Those things (and others) could end up out of the book. Or they could grow even more. I find this so exciting that I'm awake at 4 in the morning, thinking them over. At some point I'll have 300+ pages, and then the hard work will begin: revision. For now, I'm creating a glorious mess.