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No, every first draft isn't only one thing. I think Heinlein's list is quite good.
Most of my first drafts get little more that copy editing. And I'm happy with my results.
We disagree. So what else is new?
Lit, agree with all but no. 3: every first draft is what Hemingway said it is. The key is knowing when to stop revising. As they say, "Ya gotta throw the football or eat the football."
Today I plan to return to a story that has been on the shelf for the past month. I want to finish the current scene and at least get started on the next.
I must remember to check what you've actually published. Do you publish under the name estragon?
I mean, you seem to think you have "the" answers.
Honestly, rule number three troubled me for the longest time as well until I realized it was rule number 3, after rule number two about finishing. To me, this means once you feel the work is done - leave it alone. I revise a lot but once I feel I achieved what I want and get a sense of accomplishment - that's it; the fingers come off the keyboard. Further, I think a lot of us get a sense of failure or poor quality when it comes to rejection notices which make us want to rip the work apart again and that can be a vicious cycle of endless frustration when in fact it was fine, just not suited for the market attempted or the right time for that market. A nonwriter would restart the whole writing process and revise again needlessly impeding writing, while a real writer (ie experienced) would know to trust that the work is fine and push ahead and resubmit elsewhere.
I publish fiction here, at Literotica, under the name estragon. I publish my tax blog under my own name.
No, it's actually because I like good writing, and care about mechanicals.
Thursday... more reindeer, more hockey... oh, and a short blurb for the other story. I hate writing those. Almost as much as I hate blogging.
My thanks to jdunyer for starting this thread. I think it's helping me.
Care overly much about other people's mechanicals, I would say.
And I guess writing a tax blog and posting a few compartively low-rated stories to Lit. makes you an erotica guru and an annointed grammar policeman, right?
Outline a multi-part sci-fi/fantasy story. The characters have been running around my head for months now waiting for something more than the flimsy plot I had. I figured part of it out yesterday while driving, so now I just need to write it all down before I forget.
Work more on a chapter for a romance story. Never again will I post part of a chaptered story without having it all done (or at least in rough form). Blech.
And, last but not least, finish some beta reading duties.
All while changing diapers and chasing a one-year-old through a construction zone of a house. Plaster dust is a bitch, but I think our five years of renovation/restoration will be done by December. Whee!
Never again will I post part of a chaptered story without having it all done (or at least in rough form). Blech
I'm with you on the chapter stories.