I have solid goals about when I want to finish the first draft of my thesis, and hitting them requires me to write a thousand words every day.  Considering I wrote at more than twice that rate a few years ago while participating in NaNoWriMo, I knew this would be a goal I could hit and still handle two other classes (plus work, Capoeira, and life – as you might guess, I keep pretty busy).  So far I have kept it rolling, often exceeding my minimum, which has helped when circumstances have required me to cut my writing time short.  Like, say, at a gaming convention last weekend.

Last night though, I sat down to work on a transition scene and hated it.  I started it over.  It was worse.  Three starts.  Five starts.  Nothing was working.  I even got to the point that I had about eighty percent of the scene written and still felt a mad urge to delete it all.  Horrible stuff: it had no conflict, tension, or purpose beyond dialog to give the reader information.

I hated it.  I had been warned that I would have moments like this, but found no consolation in this knowledge.  The characters seemed limp, lifeless.  I could not bring myself to abandon the scene, though, because some part of me insisted that the story needed it, that the reader might get lost if I tried to skip it.  Banging my head on something solid to let the frustration out would not have helped, but it did sound tempting.

Then I remembered that this is just a first draft.

That’s important to keep in mind, not just when I want to experiment with a new approach to a key scene or when I want to play with a craft element that I think might work well.  It also matters when the words are fighting and refuse to behave themselves.

It’s just a first draft.  The words I type are set in bits, not stone.  I can change them any number of ways before a work is finished.  What’s more, how well a scene works can only be judged in context.  Once everything around it is written, then comes revision.  Then comes judging every scene, every line and every word, strengthening, deepening and polishing the manuscript until it gleams.

But you can’t revise a manuscript if you’re still writing it.  Write the scene and move on.

After I did that, the next scene flowed easily.

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Submissions Update: Since the last time I posted, I have submitted pieces to Knock, Shock Totem, Per Contra and Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

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