A word after a word after a word is power. -- Margaret Atwood

Keep Writing: Your First Draft

You’ve mapped out your life with big picture exercises. You’ve gone deep with therapeutic writing prompts. You’ve found your story. You’ve organized your story. Congratulations on completing a lot of hard work!

As our work together comes to a close, my hope for you is that you keep the momentum going on your project. I want you to set a specific goal for getting your first draft written. A first draft is an awful draft. Your first draft will be full of bad writing, telling the story rather than showing, (eg., “She sees him at work and is furious. They have a fight about the night before” etc.). It will be filled with melodrama, flat characters, changes in voice (no, I need 3rd person!) changes in plot that reverberate backwards into writing that needs to be fixed later (wait, I’m going to introduce her earlier, not here), etc, etc.

With your first draft, you will keep writing forward. You won’t edit, no matter how seemingly critical the change. You will grab an index card and write 250-500 words a few times every week.

With those goals in mind, I’d like for you to work through the following to set a goal date to have that first draft written.

A) How many words will your work be?

• Cheat notes: A typical novel is 90,000 words. Each index card scene will average 1,500 words. Use those parameters as a starting point if you have no idea. If you are writing a short story, you can also estimate the number of pages you want and multiply that by 250 words.

B) How many days of the week can you write for at least an hour?

• Cheat notes: Be realistic here and give yourself a couple of days off each week.

C) How many words will you write each day that you write?

• Cheat notes: Most writers set the goal of 500 words per day. Over 1,000 is unrealistic for most.

D) Calculate your weekly word count -- number of days(B) X number of words (C):

• Example: I will write 4 days a week. I will write 500 words a day.
• 4 x 500= 2,000 weekly word count

E) Divide your estimated total word count (A) by your weekly word count (D). 

This is how many weeks it will take you to write your first draft.

• Example: My total word count is 60,000. My weekly word count is 2,000.
• 60,000/2,000= 30 weeks

F) Add the number of weeks (E) to today’s date. 

Add some extra weeks for the unexpected delays. This is your first draft target date!

Here is an online date calculator that can help you.

• Example: Today’s date is November 15, 2021.
• November 15, 2021. + 32 weeks = June 27, 2022

This is the date you will have your first (terribly written!) draft completed! Once you have that, the writing world completely opens up to you. You can start editing, playing, rewriting, or signing up for advanced writing courses that require a first draft.

Thank you for letting me be a part of your writing journey. When you write your story, you heal yourself. When you share your story, you heal others. You are called to tell this story. Only you can tell this story. Please listen to your inner voice and write!

Trust in what you love, continue to do it, and it will take you where you need to go. -- Natalie Goldberg