Showing posts with label drafts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drafts. Show all posts

Monday, December 19, 2011

How To Write a Draft... and How Many Drafts it Takes

How does one write a draft? And how many drafts does it take until a story, blog post, or article is complete? There are plenty of people out there searching for the answers to those questions.

As a freelancer, I have a lot of different projects going on at one time. Not all of them are computer-based, so I don't always sit in front of my computer for long spans of time, nor do I always have the luxury of spending my computer time focused on a single piece of work. This can be very frustrating if I'm trying to achieve a certain goal in one sitting - such as, say, "finishing a first draft." I'm sure the same is true for many people who live and work in the writing world. Whether it's kids, pets, other jobs, or something else that takes your mind away from the draft, it can be hard when you don't know when it's time to "move on to the next stage."

Now that I've been thinking more about drafts in general, and how to get my work done more quickly specifically, I think that the problem is with the carved-in-stone definition of "draft." For example, when I write an article for a site online (such as Trail's Edge Blog), I used to try and force myself through to my desired word count on the first pass. That led to me either staring at the screen angrily when I was halfway through and coming up blank, or just procrastinating until I had that perfect slot of time available. Which never happened, by the way.