Earlier this week, I finally completed the first draft of my book Through Darwin’s Eyes.
In truth, there’s still a final chapter to write, but, as that chapter will tie together a number of strands from the earlier ones, I long ago decided I wouldn’t write it until all the other chapters had gone through at least their second drafts.
This first draft took far longer to write than it should have. One of the problems I have as a writer is an inability to sign off first drafts of individual chapters. First drafts are supposed to be crap: their sole purpose should be to get some stuff down on the page for you to hack to pieces in later drafts. But I struggle to do this, always making the best stab I can at a ‘finished’ product—even though I know damn well it’s no such thing.
There’s only one good upshot from this misplaced perfectionism (for which, read tinkering): my completed first drafts are much closer to what more sensible, more prolific writers might count as their second drafts. So why don’t we split the difference and call it my one-and-a-halfth draft?
As far as I’m concerned, working on the next draft of the book is where the fun starts. It’s at this stage that I can start linking individual chapters more closely together, emphasising recurring themes, incorporating new ideas and information that came to light since I completed particular chapters, and tightening up my prose without mercy. Excluding references, the book currently runs to just over 100,000 words: plenty of room for some judicious pruning.
How do I feel about Through Darwin’s Eyes as it stands? As someone who loves reading, and who holds good writers in awe, I find it almost impossible to read my own words without finding them hopelessly wanting. But I need to keep reminding myself this is just the one-and-a-halfth draft. And as one-and-a-halfth drafts go, my gut feeling is there’s a pretty good book in there somewhere, trying to get out.
So why don’t I get stuck in there and try to liberate it?
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