Tuesday, July 04, 2023

When is a First Draft not a First Draft?

     When it's been edited along the way, over the past four years, locked down in a third floor flat during a pandemic with a view of treetops, and subsequently workshopped and torn apart and reconstructed during MA seminars and a week long Arvon course, and with writer-ly friends, and shared with my target audience ie other Maladaptive Daydreamers for feedback, and then scoured for themes and foreshadowing and nitpicky errors during hot sweaty nights after work.

I mean, it is STILL technically a First Draft.

But boy, she's almost watertight.

If I were giving advice to anyone but myself, I'd be saying this is STILL a First Draft. 

Because? 

1. You don't have the distance from the text that you need for rigorous copy-editing.

2. If you had it published tomorrow, are you SURE you wouldn't want to change a thing?

3. It isn't a Final Draft until cold hard professionals have had their hands on it, and she still sails.

Sigh.

Okay, so maybe I can call it a First Draft (Revised with buoyancy aids). 

It's painful, and I am impatient, but I'm off for another tack around the bay....




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