Craft Corner
One thing I'm realizing about first drafts is that they're not all alike. And that's good thing even if it's hard to see it that way at first.
My last few books have been mystery novels, which are easy to plot in the sense you have certain goal posts to reach - a murder, clues, some red herrings, and the reveal of the murderer. So it was relatively easy to write first drafts as I had a good sense of where I was going. Because of it I remained steadfast in the thought that each "pass" of a book, was me going from page 1 to the end without backtracking. It's something I stuck with all this time.... until the current book I'm writing.
I love the story I'm putting together. it's a new world with new characters and mismash of things I like but I have yet to finish the first draft. One part is interruptions of other projects. The other part is that I'm figuring out the world, characters, themes, plot points all at once. I got to 2/3 in the book twice before hitting a wall in the story.. And that wall meant going back to the start and fixing and tweaking things that will ripple in the book. On one hand it means I won't finish on my target date, but it does mean I'm happier with the rough project, and with luck will lead to less work for future me. (which is important because future me suffers a lot from poor planning!)
It's easy to fall into certain patterns as writer because it's process easy, but sometimes those patterns can cause havoc. I'm pretty certain if I stuck with my no backtracking rule, I'd be a hair away from giving up on this book, but becuase I have backtracked and fixed a few things I know when I do finish the first draft it'll be quite wonderful.
