✍️ WRITER TALK - Issue #1 - "The 1/2 Draft" - Better Late Than Never
WHAT UP PEEPS!!
ME.
What does that statement and a photo of my dog McFly have to do with this post. Not a whole lot - Well maybe a bit. To be honest - McFly wanted none of me working today - Hence why this was posted so late. So If you're mad - Blame this cute lil'fucker. Go on asshole, do it!
I give you......
WRITER TALK #1 - "The 1/2 Draft"
Note: This issue has nothing to do with story structure or how to write a story. You should know all about that shit by now!
Enjoy every breath junior because it's not going to last
So. Look at you. Mr./Mrs. Writie-McWriter. You've finished your first draft. Slaved over it for months. Maybe years. Many sleepless nights and neglected relationships later, it's all done. Totally worth the divorce and 40 pounds you've gained. Am I right? Maybe you've gone ahead and given a few copies out to your friends and family - And what do you know... They all say it's amazing.
If you don't have a figurative cousin Jeff. I'll be him for you. I'm going to tell you everything you don't want to hear. I'm going to be brutally honest. For starters. NEVER SEND YOUR FIRST DRAFT TO ANYONE. EVER. NEVER. NO. DON'T. DO NOT PASS GO. STAY RIGHT THE FUCK WHERE YOU ARE.
Shits about to get real. Let ol'Jeffy boy (Emwalker) drop some knowledge on ya. What you think of as your first draft - Is really your 1/2 draft. You're half way to completing something thats halfway half decent. Savvy? - IF you've already got something written - I guess you can just scroll down to the To Do's section and go from there.
"You never get a second chance to make a first impression." - We've all heard that before - And it's never more true than when it comes to someone reading your material. If you have people that are willing to read your shit. Don't you dare fuck it and future opportunities up by giving them trash. As some one who has read hundreds of screenplays and manuscripts - let me tell you - Nothing is more daunting than someone asking if I can "Take a look at their material".
I'm going to give you some advice. Invest in your future and do your best to absorb what I tell you. This comes from many wasted days of going over the same page finessing it into "Perfection" only to have it and the surrounding 10 pages scrapped without a second thought by an editor.
All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."
Ernest Hemingway
Write your first draft using nothing but PEN and paper. Leave the white-out alone. Don't look back. EVER. NEVER EDIT A SINGLE THING! Yes I'm giving you a fucking pass to write badly.
If you have to stop and don't Remember the exact place you left off.... Then just pick up where you do. The point of this is to not loose your forward momentum. Don't give yourself the ability to correct mistakes. There is nothing you can do. It's (Most likely) going to suck. Once you've finished the story here's what you do -
NOTE: The following process takes time. If your a real writer you should have no problem with waiting because you've long mastered the Art of procrastination.
To Do's
- Literally put it in a bag.
- Put that bag in your closet. Basement. Bottom drawer. Out of sight. Gone. Buh-bye!
- Grab a beer. Have a glass of wine.
- Binge watch Breaking Bad (Anything of narrative substance).
- Read 2 comparable titles - Books OR screenplays. Stuff that you would use to describe your project. It's this meets this - The Matrix Meets Look Who's Talking.
- Resist every urge to look at your dumpster fire of story.
- Wait a minimum of 2 weeks - & While waiting - Start another story.
- Pull the 1/2 draft out of its hiding spot.
- Go out to the closest field or parking lot.
- Put said masterpiece on the ground (metal bucket is recommended).
- Dump half a cup of lighter fluid on it.
- Now drop a match on that fucker - It's Horrible-Gawd-awful-shit
Yes I'm telling you that Mommy lied. Your wife or husband was just being nice. It really is as bad as you originally thought.
- Once the fires out dump another half cup on the ashes and light it up again. Make sure its dead and it's not gonna come back.
- Go back home. Sit down at your desk and pull out another stack of paper.
This is where we're going to separate those who are drunk with the idea of becoming writers with those who have that little extra spark in their chests. You're going to rewrite the whole thing. "But.... But... But what if I forget stuff? There was this really great part where" - SHUT UP!
If you forgot it then it wasn't worth remembering any way. This time around you will be far less likely to fill up the page with nonsense. You'll be less likely to try and go back and edit while you write. What you just burned was the above mentioned 1/2 draft. It was nothing. What you write this time around. That's your first draft. It's still shit and you should never show it to any one. But at least you're one step closer to writing something someone other than your mother might give you a gold star for.
To wrap things up - I opened this post with a line about poutine & seeing visions realized - The poutine is irrelevant - The mention of visions is where I'll leave you. Sometimes when we do something and we're proud we cant wait to share it with the world. This is amplified with something like writing - Something that's normally done in solitude.
That first time you type - "The End" on the last page of a story It's something you want to share - But like another first time - It usually sucks, is super awkward and when you look back on it you're probably going to be embarrassed. So why share it with more people than you have too?
"Perfection is manufactured. A constructed illusion. Whipped up by magicians. A magician never shows you all the little pieces that make up a successful Magic trick. A successful magician doesn't mess up on stage. All you see is perfection."
Disclaimer - Lighting shit on fire is seriously fucking stupid & dangerous - I accept no responsibility for any damage cause because you might be a freaking moron. - READ - Don't actually set anything on fire PLEASE - What you really should do is burry that fucker for 10 years - So in the event that you ever become successful you can dig it up and shit yourself laughing at all the garbage you wrote thinking it and you were amazing.
SEE YOU LATER!
E.
An Introduction To My New Series - WRITER TALK & #CurateQuality
"If You Must Lie, Be Brief" - STACH Short Story Contest #27 - Entry
One Of The Most Rewarding Experiences Of My Entire Life!!
Sushi Lunch With My Mom
Contest - Enjoying Dog Days - Celebrating 300 Followers
VIEW COUNTER REMOVED FROM POSTS - F**KING HORSE SHIT!
The more I think about writing or any other craft for that matter, the more I can compare it to sculpting, where the artist slowly, but surely, goes from a mess of unformed rock into something that looks like a photo-realistic vision of what they had envisioned in their mind's eye.
fucking nailed it. Ive got a story where I'm literally on draft 100 - 135 pages - been working on ti for nearly a decade...... if you write fo you there are no rules.... write for you and the rest will fall into place!
This. Is. Next. Level.
The humor -> top notch.
The lesson -> top notch.
The pictures to go with the post -> top notch.
The text itself? -> top notch.
Maybe I should reconsider publishing my freewrites like I do if I intend to make them into a book someday~... But then again - I've already convinced myself I don't mind if I am the only person who has it in print form. It's a personal goal I wish to achieve, because regardless of it maybe being sub-par with the others out there, there's a whole lot of continuous work in there, and I've always struggled with long ongoing projects. Either finished something in a week max (preferably in a day, working 24h like a madman without sleepcaffeine helps. Big time.), or just didn't finish it at all.
Hmmm. Maybe? I'll never tell.
Anyway, I'm happy you stumbled across my freewrites the other day (today?) and that you invited me to check out your blog. Definitely will binge on a whole lot of your content.
Oh, and... how long was this post in the making?
And, just between you and me, did you burn your first draft?
Commenting for a reminder to come back and respond - Must take pooch for a walk - Thank you for reading / so happy you enjoyed the article - Be back soon to chat. all the best!
Re-commenting as a reminder to come back and check for your response. >;P
Hey man -Firstly let me apologize for not getting back to you Sooner - My goal is to never leave people hanging and seeing as you took the time to write such a genuine response to my article i I feel like I've done gone and double failed. Thank you for your kind words. You are the type of person I'm hoping to connect with here. Believe me when i say I really appreciate it. Your comment meant a great deal to me.
Despite the bravado I often display I am just as vulnerable and intimidated as the next writer - and the past week has defiantly been a time of trial for me. I'm not dealing with writers block just a serious case of writing related "BLAH".
I totally think publishing your freewrites as a book is an amazing idea - I've saved all the writing I've done there / what images I've used - plan on doing it my self in the future. Getting to the point where you're writing for you're self is important - especially if you suffer from imposter syndrome - I had a bad case of that when I first started out. Glad I moved on from that.
Right now I'm at the point where I just write because its fun - Aside from work - That's a whole other story. There was a long time where all i did was work on other peoples stuff - Paid well but - not enough to watch other peoples dreams come true while yours fade away - And be ok with it - I've had to make changes - but everybody gotta eat. Blah blah.
Oh dude i totally get you - If I told you how many things I've abandoned you would cry lol- Ive got a binder full of loglines (short synopses ) the rest were buried / burned. This post / writer talk in general is stuff I always go on about within my wiring circle while talking and hanging out - I've just never written anything down - This was written at the same time as the post I wrote introducing the series - Took about 4.5 hours to write / edit everything - and another 2 -3 to find all the gifs.
It was actually longer - I cut quite a bit - I did also come back after it was posted and make some tweaks to wordages here and there for clarity. The first bit was jot notes on a lined piece of paper and thats in the trash ...... "Figuratively Burned"? lol
Any who I'm off to work on some posts and try to get ahead a bit. sorry again for taking so long to respond. Wishing you all the best. Working on Ep 2 right now !
Not a problem at all! Life can (and does) get in the way sometimes, and we're all just humans who still need sleep (even though often times we try and pretend we don't). And as you said later in your reply, we come here (to the Steem blockchain) for fun during our free time. Sometimes we spend our leisure time out in the sun and sometimes we spend it inside for other things than Steem. It's called balance. ^^ At least to me, coming here and creating content on my blog is a hobby. Not a job. Nor do I want it to turn into a job. It won't be as fun anymore if I'm obliged to come here.
I know exactly what you mean by the imposter syndrome. Same here. It's improving in all aspects of life, not just writing, but damn, oh damn, is it still very present sometimes. But hey, improving oneself takes time, and I'm perfectly fine with that. I've learned certain things take time.... And dedication.
That sounds awesome! Speaking of which, there's topics I often discuss with friends also that maybe the general public would be interested in as well. It just doesn't quite fit the "writer-like blog" I have going on here... Maybe if I create a separate account? Or just go for it and publish here? Hmmm. Definitely worth a thought. But first, I need write those articles down. :P
Figuratively burned haha, I like that! :D I'll delete some drafts from my "unfinished" folder and figuratively burn those also, then write them anew, HHAH! ;P I mean... Hopefully write them anew.
Sounds like I need to keep my eyes peeled on your blog. Will do. :P
(I'm also behind on so many STEEM related things... ugh.. time-management, what is that, again? :P)
Hha! - This is some crazy sh!t...
Hope you got a kick out of it.
@emwalker - It was blast reading through your article. Plenty of food for thought. I feel the pain, you speak of even when write short articles. :)
I like you carefree style, with plenty of red herrings...
Congratulations - Upvote #2! I think Nicholas Cage is "Q!"
https://steemit.com/contest/@otage/winner-reverse-acronym-contest-iv
Wicked!
That Wouldn't surprise me. Guys on another planet.
Nice post. Buddy...
Please Stop - @beautifulplaces
You just said "nice post" and in your your last 100 comments you used 36 phrases considered to be spam and you made this exact same comment 1 times. You've received 4 flags and you may see more on comments like these. These comments are the reason why your Steem Sincerity API classification scores are Spam: 50.80% and Bot: 6.40%
Please stop making comments like this and read the ways to avoid @pleasestop and earn the support of the community.
Honestly, the reason why I stopped trying to write screenplays is because I kept going back to my drafts to finish them, end up re-reading them, and then throwing them away, disappointed. I think I should really just think of a story, vomit it out, read it once, bury it, go through this 12-step program, write another story, might be better.
Thanks for sharing.
DO IT. Start tomorrow.
Reply to my last blog post everytime you make a blog post and I will upvote and resteem it for free to my 36,000+ followers. @a-0-0
Eat shit dick head!