instant

Instant rice.
Instant fame.
Instant coffee.
Instant messaging.

We live in a world of immediacy. Takeouts and drive-thrus. Accelerated learning. Microwaves and ready-to-eat meals. Information provided in a split second, via Google.

With an attention span of a ferret on Pixie Stix, we demand instant satisfaction—NOW!

Overnight Celebrity

I would love to wake up tomorrow—much, much thinner and with a best-selling novel. But instant weight loss is as unlikely as an instant novel.

I am lucky enough to be able to write a first draft of a novel in a single month. I participate in NaNoWriMo every year and I always win—cranking out a 50,000 utterly crappy first draft.

But I have never shown a first draft to anyone. They are truly awful. I plot obsessively before November so the directions are there. But the draft rambles about, the characters repeat themselves and act out inappropriately, and the language is cliché, flat and boring.

Starting January 1st, I start editing. I read through my first draft, making notes and trying not to cry. I keep the secrets my characters accidently told me in the first draft and remove the personality straightjacket I tried to put them in. I star my favorite sub-plots and prune out the ones I plotted. I create charts, maps and profiles so I can keep it all straight.

Then I go through every page, working from the beginning until the very last page, creating a cohesive second draft—which is sadly, as lousy as the first draft.

Because even though, I have spent two months editing the draft it took one month to write, I am still not done. I’m not even half way done. After draft two, I start again at the beginning. There will be many more drafts, as I do more research, fix more words, polish more dialogue and get more reader input.

I know writers who quickly crank out a first draft, take a few months to edit and then publish by the next year. It would be nice if the process worked that way for me. I admit fast sounds better than slow.

But I am not a microwave. I am a crock pot. It’s the only way I can write. I’d hate to think what I would produce if I tried to be something I’m not.

What do you want NOW? What will you do today to work towards it?

Tomorrow’s post is on Joss Whedon.