A friend once told me he wanted to write a book about marriage. He described each chapter in detail and told me his three keys to a successful marriage (sex was #3). I thought it was funny because he’d only been married for one year.
It’s thrilling to write what you care about. Some stories should probably wait to be written, allowing experience to sharpen the narrative. But then again, some stories need to just be written, to go through the process; to take in life, to possibly die and rise again.
I hope my friend writes that book and I hope he’s been writing it in the first years of his marriage. For when the story is ready and ripe he’ll see so much more of reality.
That’s what our first drafts do–our throw away and deleted paragraphs–they shape the way we see.
Ross Gale is a writer and editor from the Pacific Northwest. 
Sometimes experiences are formless and vague until I write them down… and isn’t it funny how we usually don’t write things when we are happy?
It’s true. Unless I’m ranting.
Reblogged this on Writing Is Hard Work and commented:
RC Gale wrote this nice piece on first drafts. It’s worth a read.
Thanks for the reblog roger.
I find the words come easier when I’m writing something I care about—parts of my book or things I’ve held onto for a long time, like the entries I started my blog with.
Also, thanks for the follow to my blog, and I’m very impressed with yours. I will be following as well.
Thanks Alisa.
I wish I’d written down how I felt during my first year of marriage…
Very true
Original drafts are us working out our characters. We just need to remove them and file them for safe keeping before we submit.
That’s very true for fiction. I think in non-fiction it’s true of ourselves.
Wow… That sounds kind of deep.
Well said.
Love this, because in my experience my first draft is nothing close to subsequent drafts. But the beauty of the first draft is primal, uninhibited. It’s almost like what you wish was true, but isn’t.