Getting Through The Crappy Rough Draft: A Dialogue With My Muse

Dialogue: Crappy Rough Draft

Open with me sitting on my ugly yellow sofa staring at my laptop, working on my crappy rough draft. My Muse perches on the back of my sofa, hunched over me like a bird of prey.

ME: Okay, big scene! This is the first time in the novel that Christof sees Sally in her five-thousand-ton space squid form. (Typing). “He stared at her, mouth agape as dozens of red tentacles writhed across the field….” This is stupid.

MUSE (Leaps off the couch): And then Christof runs back to his car. He’s so overwhelmed by what he’s seen, he pukes across the hood.

ME: Hold on, I still need to figure out how I’m gonna describe Sally’s squid form. Should it be red tentacles or crimson tentacles?

MUSE: Why are we still talking about this?

ME: How many tentacles do squid even have? I should look that up.

MUSE: That doesn’t matter right now.

ME (Staring at screen): They have ten, two are longer than….

MUSE: Your hero’s sense of reality has been shattered. Describe that and then move on.

ME: I’m picturing the squid being more of a burgundy….

MUSE: Listen! Christof is staring at the colossal kraken, terrified out of his mind, but he can’t stop himself from thinking about the evening they spent on the boardwalk playing skee-ball and losing at the claw machines. He realizes that maybe there are more important things in life than whether or not you’re a space squid.

ME: Maybe she should be a space octopus. I need to go back and rewrite the first twelve chapters.

MUSE (Grabs Me by the collar): This is the most dramatic moment of your hero’s life. Stop focusing on the details and keep writing.

ME: I have to get this right!

MUSE: But do you have to get it right today?

ME: …

MUSE: This is just a rough draft! You’re gonna go through at least two more revisions before anyone reads it. You have time to revise. But you’re on a roll now. Get as much of it down as you can and we’ll worry about the rest later.

(I stare at the screen for a moment. At last, I start typing.)

(Curtain.)

In Short

There has been a lot of debate on whether it’s better to have a crappy rough draft or to focus on revising your first draft while you write it. I do wholeheartedly believe that it’s better to have a completed (if very rough) manuscript you can then edit.

That being said, I do acknowledge that writing chapter after chapter that feels like crap for weeks/months can wear you down. As in the dialogue I would prioritize moving forward over polishing. However, if you really think it would help maybe take some time out of each day to revise what you had written the previous day. Not to polish, not to make perfect, just revise. Set a timer. Give yourself fifteen minutes, then force yourself to move on.

Favorite Short Story From June

My favorite short story that I read during the month of June was THE DREADFUL AND SPECIFIC MONSTER OF STAROSIBIRSK by Kristina Ten published in The Dark. This story follows a tourist community in decline that decides to invent a monster in order to gain national attention and just about everything that can go wrong does go wrong. There are many funny parts but it does have a truly haunting ending.

What else happened In June?

Honestly a lot.

First of all, my horror short story RAGE AND REDEMPTION was accepted for publication by Graveside Press and will appear in their “Soul” anthology this fall. I have also been working on the rough draft of a new novel, I’m sure I will have more I can talk about that later.

Also, I have taken some vital steps forward in finding an illustrator for my one-shot horror comic and an editor for my novel. Unfortunately, nothing has been signed so I can’t go into details yet.

Regarding books, I re-listened to Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman and World War Z by Max Brooks. I have also read The Cat who Taught Zen by James Norbury.

Also my wife and I started training for our sixth marathon using the Hal Higdon schedule. We haven’t really gotten into the depth of it yet. The longest run we have gone on has been six miles. But within a four weeks we will be up to ten miles!

And finally, for no reason whatsoever, here is a photo of my cat: