Finishing Drafts
A lot of people see the completion of the first draft as the important landmark in a writing project. Until you reach that point, your footing’s unsure, the air is too hazy to see the finish line, and the ground beneath you could collapse at any point. Once you finish the first draft, the white tape has exploded across your chest and you’ve won.
I disagree.
There’s the saying that so-and-so large percentage of writing is rewriting. That I agree with. And that is why finishing the SECOND draft is the important point for me. Most of the time, the first draft is crap. And unless I can actually work on it further and shape it into something more refined, it remains crap. It may be complete crap, but it’s still just crap.
I came to this realization when I finished the second draft of my screenplay for my thesis (current working title: Sherry Summers By Day.) I’ve spent about a year revising bits and pieces when I wasn’t busy with writing projects for my workshops at Emerson, and I fell into the trap of rewriting the same scenes over and over. In some ways, it was more work than draft one and I finally have a real feeling of accomplishment now that it’s done. Maybe because it’s finally reasonably presentable. Or because I’ve checked off the long list of scenes that needed to be rewritten because I cringed whenever I thought of them.