I Hate Crunch Time!

For a start, it's not like it sounds. You don't get a Penguin biscuit or a bag of Hula Hoops (not that I eat snacks or chocolate biscuits). Nope. Crunch time is about finding yourself facing an imminent deadline and running well behind. It happens. Good writing habits can prevent it, but, unfortunately, bad habits come easier.

The last three weeks have been crunch time for me. Today is the day that I hand in the loose, messy, plate-of-spaghetti first draft of Rynn's World. It's the biggest, most complicated thing I've written so far, and it still needs a trukk-load of work, but, like I said, we're talking about the first draft here.

Generally speaking, I'll write three drafts of a story. The first should be pretty loose. Don't worry about consistency too much. You just run right through it, letting your imagination take you along for the ride. It's all about getting words on the page, getting from beginning to middle, and from middle to end. It took me a while to realise that the first draft wasn't supposed to be the draft. It sounds obvious, but when you're faced with that first blank page, characters who don't yet have a voice, and the knowledge that expectations are high, you'd be surprised how many easy lessons you forget.

So, like I said, the first draft is real loose.

The second draft is for fixing all the scenes and events that don't really work. You read your first draft over, cringe a lot, keep telling yourself you can turn things around, and focus on sorting the junk bits from the good stuff. It's a toss-up to see which is harder, the first draft or the second. My favourite draft is the third draft.

The third draft is all about polish, language and style. You should, by now, have a story that works in terms of plot progression, character, pace and the like. For the third draft, you go through it one more time, line by line, making sure the language is clear, repetition is kept to a minimum, consistency is maintained, and that the vocabulary is appropriate (and not too obtuse - when I'm reading a book, I don't want to have to stop and pull my dictionary out. I want to stay in that imaginary world and be pulled long by the story. Fiction is supposed to be entertainment, after all). You work on your phrasing, on trying to make the sentences more evocative or dynamic. This is about the real nuts and bolts of English, but it's also about the art, too.

Finally, third draft done (and hopefully approved), you've got your book, the one that folks will see in the stores and maybe even buy. If you pulled it off, they'll like it, maybe even love it. If not, you suck it up (writers need a thick skin) and try to refine your craft on the next one. You don't give up, not unless you've realised you should definitely be a marine biologist or neurosurgeon instead.

Writing is hard for me, and never more so than at crunch time. My physical training, one of the most important aspects of my daily life, suffers terribly. I usually train about 2 hours a day, five days a week, a mixture of working on the heavy-bag and bodybuilding/conditioning. Can't live without it. During crunch time, though, the writing leaves no room for it. Sure, it was only three weeks this time, but for me, that's a long time to be away from the gym.

For now, crunch time is over. I just had a great workout and the old endorphins are back. My editor will read the first draft of Rynn's World and tell me what he thinks works, doesn't work, could work, etc. Then I get to rewrite, to make it better, to fix it. I'm looking forward to that.

As always, I tell myself next time will be different. Maybe it will.

Watching: Mirrors, a horror movie starring Kiefer Sutherland. Some good bits.
Listening to: the Alien soundtrack
Reading: American Gods by Neil Gaiman
This week's petition: Stop Icelandic Whaling!