It’s taken me just under a month, but today I have finally finished the first draft of a 7000 word science fiction short story by writing a minimum of 500 words a day.
Not all of these words are good, in fact a great many of them aren’t.
Okay, make that most of them.
But overall, I think I have a basic sketch of a decent plot, two potentially strong characters and a world which is interesting and needs more exploration. It’s something that’s worth further work on it.
However, thanks to a lot of broken nights this week (the kids have been ill), there were many times where I lost complete confidence in what I was writing, as evidenced in this IM conversation with Sylvia from the Can’t Backspace blog earlier today…
Me: oh FORGODSSAKE I’ve just found myself writing a FRIGGING STAR WARS SCENE
Sylvia: lol hmm
Me: oh wth, I’ll fix it later
Sylvia: it’ll do as a marker for the type of scene you want :)
Me: *mutter mutter bloody hack mutter*
Let’s just say, I’ve earned a glass of wine this evening.
I’m going to take a break from the story for a couple of weeks, during which I intend to read as many other science fiction stories as I can fit in. The plan is to make lots of notes about plotting, characterisation and what works/doesn’t work for me.
After that I have planned some heavy world building and character building sessions to hopefully breathe more life into my story for the second draft.
Incidentally, at dinner tonight, I shared the news of my finished draft with the boys. Akra Jr in particular was thrilled.
Akra Jr: Mummy, can I read your short story
Me (hyper aware of the torture and murder scenes in said story): Erm, no… I don’t think it’s really suitable, sorry
Akra Jr: Mummy, can you write me a short story, about how to make things, or about dinosaurs…. or … oh, you don’t know much about Star Wars, do you.
No dear, I just channel the film whenever I’m tired and am trying to get out my daily word count…
2 responses so far ↓
1 anabels // 12th Mar 2009 at 8:31 pm
Maybe you could write him a a short story to keep the writing muscles flexed while you are doing research on your main work in progress :) And [...] with notes of what you really mean to go there are a writer’s best friend! Gratz on the first draft!
2 Ys // 13th Mar 2009 at 5:03 pm
Hehehe channeling Star Wars – that’s great! ;)
Congrats on the first draft. I used to excitedly rush to do the re-write but a piece of really useful advice I was given was to let it breathe for a couple of months if you can. Going back with fresh eyes really makes a HUGE difference when you tackle the re-write. Maybe you could work on something else, completely clear your mind of it for a while.
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