Get Your Wheels on the Ground

Some years ago I found myself standing in an airport near a couple of pilots who were watching an airplane land. “He always slams them down like that,” one commented to the other.

While I wouldn’t particularly enjoy the experience of that kind of landing, the words still rang true to me—and for a much more positive reason.

Because that’s exactly what a first draft is. You slam it down. Get the wheels on the ground, the words on the page. We’re luckier than pilots: we can go back and fix the landing, make it more graceful.

But the first time is always like that.

My first drafts are a mess. I have an occasionally faulty memory, and so nothing exists in my world until it’s written down. Because of that, I have all sorts of ideas I throw into the mix of a first draft. Some won’t stay the course. Some are frankly contradictory to other ideas I slammed down elsewhere in the manuscript. A few take on the glitter of inspiration and stay in place through publication.

I may need to toss a lot of ideas into the mix, but I am basically an organized writer and rule-follower, so it took time to give myself permission to do this one thing differently. Two areas in particular were challenging: writing out of order, and allowing imperfections.

It’s easy to get stuck when you’re first developing a story. I can’t count how many times I find myself pacing around my desk, an action generally accompanied by the phrase, “I have no idea what happens next.” You can stay stuck, tough it out, wait for insight. That can work, but it’s a frustrating and time-consuming process. Alternately, you can jump to another section, start a different chapter, carry on with your general story arc and leave the troublesome section until later. It took me a long time to be able to write like this, especially as the narrative and dialogue tend to veer off in a new direction and I end up playing whack-a-mole with plot holes. But writing is always better than not writing.

The other practice I’ve allowed myself is to accept imperfection. There will be plenty of time later on to correct typos, make different word choices, even play with character development. Not now. Get the story on the page. When you’re experiencing flow, the last thing you want to do is interrupt it.

It’s a first draft, folks. No one but you will be reading it.

So feel free to just slam it down.