The first few articles in this series on craft simply introduced you to some of the terminology associated with creative writing. This article and the ones that follow will explore these writing topics in depth.<\/p>\n
This week\u2019s topic is none other than the shitty first draft.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Shitty First Draft<\/strong><\/p>\n You got a great idea at work, in the shower, before bed, at the movies. Or, you had a dream last night that inspired you. Or, one of your friends told you a fascinating tale.<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t matter how you got the idea to write. It only matters that you have the motivation to write. At this point, your entire focus should be the first draft\u2014that shitty first draft.<\/p>\n What do I mean by \u201cshitty?\u201d I mean it will be bad, really bad. But don\u2019t worry. Every writer writes them\u2014even the greats. Shitty first drafts are the spring-board of the imagination.<\/p>\n There is no way around it. First drafts are bad, and they\u2019re supposed to be that way. Think of your first draft as an outline. It will hint at the glorious idea that\u2019s been stewing in your brain for days or weeks. It\u2019s a glimpse, a thumbnail, the first few strokes of the painter\u2019s brush, the first impression of a sculpture, the first few notes of a song.<\/p>\n With shitty first drafts, anything goes. Want your main character to be an alien vampire? That\u2019s fine. Want to set a story in the Star Wars universe? Go for it.\u00a0 At this point, the only thing you must avoid doing is editing yourself.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t Edit<\/strong><\/p>\n Try to avoid editing your shitty first draft before it is finished. Let you mind explore freely. Don\u2019t worry about details. All you are trying to do is test an idea. If it works\u2014great! If not\u2014well, you can always write another shitty first draft.<\/p>\n I have a first draft, now what?<\/strong><\/p>\n Once you have created your shitty first draft, your journey as a writer can truly begin. In the next article on craft, I will introduce you to the process of drafting your story.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The first few articles in this series on craft simply introduced you to some of the terminology associated with creative writing. This article and the ones that follow will explore these writing topics in depth. This week\u2019s topic is none other than the shitty first draft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mosespowelleckstein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mosespowelleckstein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mosespowelleckstein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mosespowelleckstein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mosespowelleckstein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mosespowelleckstein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98,"href":"https:\/\/www.mosespowelleckstein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions\/98"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mosespowelleckstein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mosespowelleckstein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mosespowelleckstein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}