Our Brains and First Drafts

Editing

First drafts are meant for no eyes but your own your eyes only. It shows your brain’s progress. It highlights a secret process;  It shows how your brain works.

I can’t know for sure know about you but I for darn sure don’t want anyone to see in that.  I prefer to keep this process to myself.

The My first draft is messy, full of redundancy, thinking out loud, and falling-down-two-flights-of-stairs onto a concrete floor awful. 

SPLAT.

Then along comes Second Draft.

I make deep cuts; edit out the shitty crappy poor grammar, the echoes, and all unnecessary words that do not contribute. Words that bubble out of my brainpan do not necessarily flow as well on the page.

Because my first drafts were so shitty crappy bad and the edits extensive, I wondered if I was alone wrestling the story my brain was putting out into a coherent tale.

Enter two books 

Writing Tools 

by Roy Peter Clark 

and 

On Writing by Stephen King.

Both show the authors' first drafts and then their edited versions with strikeouts and re-writes. One of Mr. King’s comments struck a chord. He said this process is true even for ‘professional writers’, following the roller coaster ride that is your brain.

Like life, it can get untidy, this editing process. Don’t get discouraged.

Birth can get is messy. Creating a story is no exception.