The Second Draft

 Before I go on, please, tell me, how is it the cat can tread on the keyboard and upset all of the settings? How is it he can turn the screen to portrait view or turn off the second monitor? How does he have these talents when I don't know any of these keyboard functions? What sort of trickery is this? How can he do this all the time? 

Regardless, I'm not here to talk about the cat. I'm here to talk about this thing called a second draft. 

It's all a bit mythical to me. 

Me, get to a second draft? 

Well, yes. 

Second drafts, to me, are a bit of a mythical thing. I mean, I have don't second drafts - but strangely, I write fairly cleanly, and structure is something I've always done quite well. Maybe call it my Virgoan nature, or maybe it's a touch of the OCDs in me. I like to know where I'm going and I normally have the structure in my head. 

But after the retreat the other weekend, and a bit of a kick up the bum from some friends, I've got out the first draft I wrote five years ago. It's working title is The Work Husband. I wrote it in 2019, pre COVID, when I had the job from hell, where I was underutilised and over paid. I managed to do the whole of a NANOWRIMO 50,000 words during November. 

There's now 90,000 words in a document waiting to be dealt with. 

So, I'm doing the brave thing and starting on the second draft of this. 

Believe me, it's brave. 

I've got myself a Scrivener license so I can keep track of things. I know the gist of what is in this manuscript - a reworked memoir of my time in Britain, but I've thrown in a bit of a mystery and a love story for good measure. 

And to be honest, I'm not unhappy with what I'm reading. It's not magnificent, but it's not bad either. 

I showed some working to a friend at the retreat - somebody I trust to tell me if it is truly awful. She liked what she was reading - I don't think she was being just nice. 

So yeah, I'm going into second draft mode. Or what is also known as the "Up Draft". According to Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird, there are three drafts. The Down Draft, where you puke up your book, the Up Draft, where you refine it, and the Dental Draft, where you go through it with a nit comb. 

With Scrivener, with the chapter cards, I can see where this book has been and gone. 

I also know that the manuscript is unfinished. I'm probably about 20,000 words away from getting this finished, but I can't remember what is in here. I have to reacquaint myself with the story and what I've written. 

At least I'm reading this and not wanting to vomit. The writing, even for a first draft, is not too bad - yes, it needs work, but it's okay. It's my story. It's getting there. 

I got another kick up the bum today. I received a book in the mail - the prize for a short fiction sponsored by Allen and Unwin. I put in my little story. I won a book out of it. 

This was my story:

"You only have one chance to ponder how small and how big you can be all at once. Try standing on the seashore, allowing the water to lap over your feet. Then consider the sea, then consider the sand, then consider that you are a part of everything large and small, and that life will always be like this. Fluid. Ephemeral."

And there was a little note from

Fun what you can do with 60 words. It won me a book. 

This jogged my memory. I did the Faber Novel Writing Course in 2020. I was happy. I've got some inroads into the publishing arena, not that it means anything, but Faber Graduates get put to the top of the slush pile (even if one of your tutors says you're better suited to Hachette...)

The fire in my belly is lit. 

I revise a chapter a night, putting a card into Scrivener to remind me what's going on. 

And I keep reminding myself that this is what I want and that I can do this. 

Today's song: