A Rough Draft is Better Than No Draft at All
Embracing the rough draft helps authors write faster, and write more, by giving ourselves permission to be imperfect. We'll talk about some ideas for getting words onto paper like dictation, handwriting, and otherwise just getting words out as fast as we can knowing that there's nothing we can't fix later.
A lot of writers get too concerned with perfection-in grammar, usage, even formatting-while we should be tapping into our creativity, immediacy, and natural voice. This is for writers across all categories, both fiction and non-fiction.
Philip Athans has spent the last thirty years as an author and editor and has learned to embrace the “short, bad book," knowing it can get longer, and better, before anyone else reads it.
In this 57-minute tutorial video, we'll see how getting the story out as fast as possible gives us the raw material with which to build a quality finished book. We'll define what a rough draft is and how to get there, covering:
- Getting out of your own way
- Going for done
- The minimum functional outline
- The least research possible
- What to turn off
- The hard work of rewriting and revising
No one can write and edit at the same time-write in ecstasy, edit with intent. In that order!
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