Sonja Foust

After pre-writing, I’m ready for drafting!

Drafting

And I’m off. I open the laptop… and I freeze. I stare at that blinking cursor for long minutes, or hours… or days, if I’m being honest. When I finally begin chapter one, it’s out of frustration. “God, I have to start somewhere, and if it sucks, I’ll delete it later.” I usually delete it later.

Once I get started, I try to write fast. I find that if it takes more than a couple months for me to write a novel, it either doesn’t get done, or the last few chapters are like torture to finish because I’ve figured out the ending and I’ve lost interest in writing it down. So I write as fast as I can for about 4 or 5 weeks.

When the novel is done, I cry, I congratulate myself, I drink some wine, and I put the damn thing away. If I have a lot of time, I put it away for a month or so.

Only then do I edit.

Related posts:

1. The Process: Pre-Writing
2. The Process: Submitting
3. The Process: Editing
4. Epiphanage
5. How I Became Rich and Famous, Part 2