The weeks get longer and the weekends get shorter. I’m pretty sure that’s some sort of time travel.
I read something this past week that I really liked (especially since I’m struggling my way through the first draft of a sequel). “All first drafts are perfect because they only have to be written.” (Now if I could just remember where I read it so I could attribute it properly… but for now, know that it isn’t my quote.) *
At any rate, it’s certainly a far cry from Hemingway’s “The first draft of anything is shit.”
Oddly, however, both of those quotes make me feel better about the mess I’m creating by writing 100 words at a time, with a missing outline, and without looking back at what has already been written. It’s going to be a hot mess to edit, but without the shitty and perfect first draft, editing will never happen.
Or as Anne Lamott put it, “The first draft is the down draft – you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft – you fix it up.”
I don’t know if there are any quotes for the third through 300th drafts.
* I Googled it:
“Every first draft is perfect because all the first draft has to do is exist. It’s perfect in its existence. The only way it could be imperfect would be to NOT exist.”
― Jane Smiley
Novel Notes 