I wrote the first draft of Expired when I was fourteen. I wrote it for NaNoWriMo and the final draft ended up at about 60k.
I edited that version for a while. It was slow going, and I knew I’d have to alter the plot and ending. It was difficult and stressful.
I came across a piece of writing advice that changed the whole process. It told me to rewrite the whole thing to create a second draft instead of just editing. At first, that sounded like too much work. Rewriting 60k words? The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to be the answer to my problems.
I revisited my plot, reworked some holes, and started my re-write.
The first couple chapters stayed almost the same plot-wise, but re-writing it with my four additional years of experience made the writing better. The story itself changed significantly after that, and while the general idea is still intact, I’d argue it isn’t the same story anymore.
My characters are developed differently, there are more twists and turns. Some of it is good, some of it still needs some editing. That’s the next stage.
I’m at 42k right now. I anticipate at least another 30k needs to be written. When the second draft is done, I’ll start slashing, adding, and fine-tuning. I have no idea how long it will take, but starting February first (tomorrow) I’m committing to working on it at least thirty minutes a day.
If you ever decide to write a book, these are the steps I recommend:
- Use NaNoWriMo (or do your own 30-day challenge) to get that first draft done.
- Let it sit for a month or two, let your ideas brew and make note of changes you want to make.
- Commit to another daily challenge and re-write the entire draft from beginning to end.
- Edit, edit, edit.