Lazy or Committed?

If you’ve read my blogs for any amount of time, you know I promote that having a terrible rough draft is better than no rough draft. You also probably know that I’ve been struggling with this myself in my current drafting process for my third novel. What you don’t know is that this is probably the worst rough draft I’ve written, for the level of writing experience I’ve had.

While it’s absolutely better than the first draft of my first novel, it’s not on the same level as my current skillset. What I mean is my first rough draft was only as rough as it was, because I was just starting out and didn’t know better. I’m a better writer now, and I should be able to write a rough draft that reflects that.

But I haven’t. They say the artist is his own worst critic, but either I’ve forgotten each time around how hard drafting is compared to revising (at least for me), or this time has truly been a time of forcing the words out onto paper. Over the past week, even getting 100 words down has been a struggle.

I have mixed feelings about the underlying problem. Yes, I’m probably devoting too much time to social media and texting, or of finding emails that I make important just so I don’t have to write. But at the same time, it is a rough draft, I am struggling with being willing to see my work turn out bad, and taking so long to write is understandable in some ways.

Part of me feels lazy. I know I can do better. And the other part of me feels like I’m doing what I can, because if I don’t force the words out or put something that I know is stupid and lazy, I know I’ll not write at all. So maybe I’m committed? I don’t know.

What I do know is that I’m planning to stay on schedule to have this draft finished by mid-May, whether or not it’s good. I do know that portions of this draft are for my eyes alone. I know enough to polish some of it up myself before giving it to my friends for critiques. And for right now, that’s all I can do. Maybe I’m letting myself get away with lazy writing. But I know I’ll fix it. So at least I’m writing.

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You don’t have to have it all figured out to move forward. – Roy T. Bennett

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