These were two insights I gained from a recent writer's workshop.
There is a wonderful organization in this area that sponsors an annual event, "What If All of ____ Read the Same Book?" Are there any towns in your area that participate in this event? If so, I highly recommend investigating it. This is the first year I attended one of the events, but I plan to make it an annual outing.
The author I was priviliged to hear is Hannah Tinti, author of The Good Thief. Please note that this is an endorsement only of the information shared at the workshop.
The information in Tinti's workshop was tremendously helpful, even though I am not using it at this stage in my journey. That's because her topic was revision and I'm following her first draft advice to the letter: Turn off your internal editor! Get it down! Have fun!
How many drafts do you write? Hannah wrote 15 for The Good Thief, which originally weighed in at over 600 pages and is now under half that total.
A quote I particularly liked was "your writing is a jigsaw puzzle you created, you have the solution." I've thought about this quote several times since. If I truly allow Christ to direct my writing day by day it doesn't mean I'm not working by a plan, but that I should be prepared for the plan to change without much notice.
Do you struggle with making messy first drafts? Oh, boy, can I relate.
In college writing classes, Tinti's intstructor challenged her to produce one page of the worst writing possible. This then freed them from fear of failure.
When I sit down to write these last few weeks I preface my session with telling myself "you are free to write the worst possible." Its freeing, and I have not produced my worst work ever. In fact, I think this allowance has improved my rough draft as I've also allowed myself to "disobey" my outline and allowed the story to move more freely.
At the end of each draft Tinti advises telling ourselves we're brilliant, having a "draft" party...THEN waking up the next day and ruthlessly revising.
Now, I'm not quite ready for my draft party....BUT I am ready to party with you in celebration of over 300 followers. I have 2 books up for the grabs to TWO lucky commenters: Lady in Waiting by Susan Meissner and Petra by T.L. Higley.
Tell me a bit about your revision process, if you're working on a novel. Is it difficult for you to free yourself up to write your first draft? How many times have you revised a work-in-progress?
Be sure to include your email address and which book you would like to read. The winner will be announced in Saturday's post.
