The Terror of a Looming Second Draft

I had a creative writing teacher when I was a kid who used to tell us that there was no such thing as writer’s block.  I’ve lived by this mantra ever since; sure, sometimes you don’t know where a piece should go, but if you just sit down and put a pen to paper (or fingers to a keyboard) it will go somewhere. If you don’t end up liking it you can throw it away or fix it in the second draft.

It’s that second draft part that’s posing the problem.  A first draft is allowed to be junk; it’s just words on paper, explorations in character and theme and voice. You shake all that good stuff out of your brain (along with a fair handful of crap) and just let it lie.  Then in the second draft, you shape it into what you want. With the second draft comes expectations.

I finished the first draft of my novel the last week of July, and told myself to take August off to get some distance, planning to jump back in the first week of September. 

That didn’t happen.

In the intervening 7 weeks I’ve had several trusted writer friends read it for me and give me feedback.  I now have a pretty good idea of what’s working and what’s not working. The problem is I really really want to write something good.  I want to get published, and I feel like I need to represent myself with the strongest possible work because there aren’t many second chances in this industry.  This, of course, means my second draft has to kick ass.  And while I have a few ideas on how to make it better, I’m yet to convince myself that any of them are New-York-Times-Bestseller-List-worthy.

And yes, there’s always the possibility of a third and fourth and fifth draft, but I’ve never been a third, fourth, or fifth draft writer.  I’m a second draft writer.

Draft One: Barf out ideas
Draft Two: Sculpt barfy ideas into “art”
Draft Three: Polish and glaze

The manuscript is sitting on my desk, it’s fat pages wrapped in an orange rubber-band. I know I just have to do it. I have to pick it up and write. I have to let go of this second-drafter self-image.  I have to stop thinking that whatever words next come out of my mouth have to be simultaneously comparable to Faulkner and Isabelle Allende and David Sedaris.  I just have to get out of my head, put my fingers on the keyboard, and write.

Here’s to hoping putting these thoughts down in cyberspace will be just the kick-in-the-pants I need. I still don’t believe in writer’s block, I just need to recover from it.