Another First Draft

I did it! I finished another first draft!

I have now officially written three complete first drafts of different books.

The First First Draft was shelved because I wrote it when I was 17-18 and didn't have solid novel writing skills yet. It was a jumbled mess of too many ideas happening at once, and one day, I hope to go back and work with those ideas again.

The Second First Draft is what I am currently calling my Hopeful Debut Novel. It is out with beta readers at the moment, and I used that waiting time to plot then write my third first draft.

The Third First Draft flew out of me in just THREE MONTHS!

In April, I took some students on a trip to an English Convention, and I started writing a scene based on one of the places we saw. After that scene hit me so hard, another came rolling right after. In fear of creating yet another jumbled plot that needed a ton of work, I decided to step out of my comfort zone and plot the whole book.

I kept telling myself that just because I wrote down the plot didn't mean that I couldn't change or adjust as I went. This was the best thing I could have told myself

I started out using the Katytastic 3 Act 9 Block 27 Chapter plot structure. (I'll link her video below). My brain had already created a basic idea of what I wanted the conflict to be, so laying it all out in the specific moments a story needs was so helpful. After I finished following Katy's instructions, I started writing from the beginning--knowing I already had certain character details ironed out in the random scenes I had written by a hotel pool.

As I went along, the initial outline served more as stepping stones across a river than anything. Each time I would enter a new plot point, I created another, more specific outline to the side. This outline is where I wrote step by step what had to happen in those given scenes.

Doing this extra outlining step proved invaluable when I sat down to write because even if I got distracted or interrupted while I was writing, I always knew what came before and what should come next. Jumping in and out of writing was so much easier this way. (I'm the mother of a one-year-old, so interruptions are my life).

Thanks to my daughter's nap schedule, I was able to write the actual versions of the scenes while she turned the crook of my arm into a sweat puddle. I would go so far as to say that 75% of the Third First Draft was written on my iPhone--thumbs padding away while Little Women played on the TV.

Though it is still far from a final draft and will probably be put on the backburner while I return to editing my Hopeful Debut Novel, I am still incredibly proud of myself for treating this book like a job and forcing myself to do what I was always capable of: WRITING BOOKS!

Here's to manifesting success for all of my first drafts (even the crappy ones)!

Katytastic Outline Video