Jane Austen Really Said ‘I Respect The “I Can Fix Him” Movement But That’s Just Not Me. He’ll

One of life’s greatest pleasures is taking a shower and lying under a fan butt naked…

Start romanticizing chaos…

Messy notes, hundred of tags on books, a desk covered with papers of different subjects, unsolved math problems and unfinished projects.

Hey, so i'm working on my first WIP, and i wanted to ask about drafting. When can one consider their first draft done? Does it have to have the goal word count (ie; 100K), or would being about halfway there be considered a good enough first draft, that i can move on to the second and start editing?

Concluding each stage of the writing process

It's difficult to know when a phase of a writing project has concluded and you're ready to focus on a new objective as it's developing. I tend to approach my writing projects with a clear and uniform trajectory, regardless of how diverse my projects can be. This approach allows me to remain focused, thorough, and reassured that I am covering all my bases in an organized fashion. However, it also maintains space for me to be explorative and intuitive when necessary. In regards to word count, I don't think it's entirely relevant unless you're determined to adhere to strict genre conventions. Give your story the space it needs and not an extra inch.

(Optional) Zero Draft

In this phase, you're telling yourself the story. You're doing it quickly, messily, intuitively, and forgivingly. Explore every idea that glows in the dark for you, don't throw anything away or discount any possibility. Exhaust your imagination in this phase so that when you reach the first draft, you know you're making informed decisions.

First Draft

You're crafting the structure and core elements of the story. This is often the phase of discovery. You're becoming acquainted with your characters and how they interact, you're beginning to feel at home in the world and settings you've built, and you're seeing all sides of the conflict as it evolves. The goal here is settle on a beginning, middle, and end point, and by the end of this process you want to know your characters' motivations and relationships inside and out.

Second Draft

Go back quickly through the first draft and address any points where you got stuck, where you compromised for the sake of carrying on to the end, and fill in any apparent blanks. The first time you really iron something out, there will always be a few pesky creases. This is the time to find and flatten them.

Third Draft

This is where you question everything. Identify and scrutinize your decisions, dive into the "curtains are blue" discussions with yourself, and begin to tidy up things like grammar, clumsy dialogue, over-poured descriptions, and dubious vocabulary. Comb through each paragraph and be brutal, prioritizing clarity and intentionality of how you've told the story.

The Read Through

This is the point where I recommend doing three things:

Letting it rest away from you for 1-3 months so that you can return to it with a bit of unfamiliarity and new perspective.

Hand it off to a couple of trusted readers and give them ample time to read, digest, and craft some feedback

Reread the project once all the way through making no changes (although annotations are acceptable)

Fourth Draft

Finishing touches. Vigorously and meticulously scrub and scrape between the lines and imagine giving it to your worst enemy. If you can imagine any mean (but valid) things they could conceive of to say about it, this is the time to grapple with or fix those details.

Additional Resources

Guide to Drafting

Word Count/Productivity Tracker Spreadsheet

Balancing Detail & Development

Writing The First Chapter

Writing The Middle of Your Story

Powering Through The Zero-Draft Phase

Writing The Last Chapter

Chapter Length

Happy drafting,

x Kate

This messed me up real bad

one thing about jean that fucks me up sooo bad is that he is just a kid. he's so young. he's scared of getting lost in airports. he closes his eyes on the back of a motorcycle so he doesn't have to see traffic. his favorite magnet is a little bear with a red barret.

5/31/24

sorry guys for the breif break, but school got out and I decided to allow myself a bit of a break. for the past two weeks I have had the luxury of being a slug, but i start my job in two days and decided to begin to acclimate myself to being a functional human. throughout my break i was proud of myself because i wrote every day, weather that was journaling or working on something publishable, and i read daily.

being home was an unwelcome change, me and my mom don't get along, and thankfully she had been working in office the past 2 weeks, but now that shes working from home I've decided to spend as little time as possible at home. my mom is generally unsupportive of anything that she doesn't seem as valuable, and sees my hobbies as a waste of time unless she can brag to her friends about it.

in other good news, i've found a new eq barn and am trying it out tomorrow, I've been drinking water consistently and i found my bracelet and necklace that i thought i loss. they belonged to my dad before i 'stole' them, and have become very important to me, despite my hatred of working retail, i am excited to have some structure in my life, i find that when i have appointments or schedules it makes me more productive so working again should be good for me, anyway here's to what i did today

whay i did today:

wahsed hair

oiled scalp

read only the brave washed and put away clothes

washed dishes

cooked

journaled

went through storage bins

drunk a crap ton of water

Study tips that i learned through failures!

1. It's so important that you do a first read thru of the text as fast as possible. Stick to annotations and brief summarizing notes/outlines. Our brain is constantly making connections even when we're sleeping, so even if you don't understand something at first, getting stuck on it is a waste of your present time AND sleep time. Some things will click while you're doing chores because your brain is still working in the background! But it can't happen if there is nothing to click. Try to expose yourself to all the material as early as possible. [If you're studying math, skip the derivations and proofs in the first read thru and just do the example problems and focus on the underlying assumptions. Depending on the class/exam objective, you might not even be tested on the proof]

2. The breaks. Even if you know you can study 4 hours straight - don't. I used to do this especially when I was anxious, but it just burned me out. Even as quickly as the next day! If you're doing your first pom of the day and you feel really fresh to the point that you feel like you can skip that first break - dont.. it will pile up!

3. The water and the sugar!! This might sound really obvious, but studying burns up so many resources. On days I don't study, I might be okay with 60-70 oz of water, but on days I do, it's normal for me to hit 100 oz. I also ate way more food in general and ate more sugar too, and I think that's pretty normal.

4. Flashcards and practice problems > annotations > having nice notes. It kills me to say it, but the last exam I took (and passed!), I relied on my very disorganized notes/screenshots on my tablet. I didn't have time to organize and transfer them nicely onto paper in order even though every perfectionist cell in my body wanted to soo badly. Making your own textbook can be helpful but I seriously just didn't have the time. Focus on what will actually get you that pass score!

5. Find the note-taking app you like BEFORE your study period or exam season and practice using it! The last thing you want is to fight the syncing mechanism as you're trying to study. I like to use Flexil because of the split screen feature, the linked screenshots, and the cross-platform sync. If you are studying math, either learn latex over the summer/off period so you can use it in Obsidian/Anki or commit to manually written flashcards and notes the whole way. Dont try to switch halfway through because that will be a waste of your time. I personally think writing out the math is faster than typing it out in Latex, but it's your poison (they're both poison). (And if you study any type of math, I 10000% recommend using a tablet)

6. Unless you are studying for fun, orient everything around the class/exam objectives. Unfortunately, you're not gonna have time to be curious. If you don't think something will be tested, quickly cut it out and move on.

7. Figure out what your exam taking weaknesses are. Out of every 10 missed problems, I realized I'd miss a question solely because i input the wrong number into the calculator. Now I say the numbers in my head as I put it in, do it at a relatively slow pace, and break up large formulas into itsy pieces and make sure the output is close to what I expect it to be. I write out all the steps on paper sometimes to make sure every calculation is as expected. You only get once chance during the real thing, so it's important to come up with a policy to reduce risk and to stick to it every time.

*clinks my glass*

Can I have your attention please? Thank you. I would like to make a toast.

We imagine a lot stories. Some we write down, some we forget and some fade away with time. We keep on writing though, even if the previous ones stay work in progress. These ideas, stories and dreams are what made us and will make us till we breathe our last.

So here's to, unfinished work and unedited books and may they thrive just as you do.

No offense but I think some of you would be a lot happier writing a fictional atlas or encyclopedia instead of a narrative story

Isn't it odd how much fatter a book gets when you've read it several times? As if something were left between the pages every time you read it. Feelings, thoughts, sounds, smells... and then, when you look at the book again many years later, you find yourself there too.. a slightly younger self, slightly different, as if the book had preserved you like a pressed flower... both strange and familiar.

- Cornelia Funke, The Inkheart