i drafted my book in 26 days. here’s how
I always considered myself to be a notoriously slow writer, especially with first drafts. My first complete book took 10 months to write, and then Book 2 took two years.
Book 3 only took 26 days to write.
Is the book good? Of course not!!! But does the book exist? Yes it does—and for first drafts, existing is all that matters.
Draft 1 is only 44k words long, or 140 pages according to Word. But I skipped over a lot of descriptions in the interest of mapping out my book’s skeleton and establishing the bones of the story.
So, how did a notoriously slow writer suddenly become a fast-drafter? In short, the recipe for my fastest draft ever boiled down to these elements:
Working out the kinks early
Setting concrete goals
The “fix it later” mentality
A good idea
working out the kinks (the outlining/brainstorming process)
Estimated time to outline: 30 days
Actual time to outline: 18 days
I’ve always considered myself a “plantser” (a plotter and a pantser) when it comes to my writing process. Whenever I’d start a new project, my outlines were loose—nothing more than a bullet point list for a first chapter, midpoint, and fun scenes I wanted to include. I was never good at making chapter-by-chapter outlines until my first draft had some grounding, because I would learn the story structure through the writing process.
I was never one to dedicate separate time for brainstorming, outlining, and drafting—because I’d be doing those three things at the same time.
This time, I did things differently.
Book 3 is my first speculative project. And as a writer who strives in contemporary stories, the intimidation of writing in a new genre pushed me to be more organized in my early process.
Because now, the narrative and character arcs were no longer the only elements to look out for when it came to inconsistencies—I also had to consider my worldbuilding and the “rules” I was creating within them. And since it’s my first time working with speculative elements, I knew how easy it would be to mess it up.
I knew I wasn’t going to get everything right on the first try, but I could at least save myself some grief by ironing out the major flaws.
While I was working on the outline, I was also identifying important details I had to figure out before I could start the draft. I had a Notion page called “important details brain dump”, which basically listed any and every question I had to answer—especially if it was related to the speculative part of the story.
I had such an itch to start drafting already, but I’m so glad that I took the time to smooth out the details to the best of my ability. In the long run, doing that also minimized my writers’ block while I was drafting.
redacted snippet from the “important details brain dump” notion page
setting concrete goals (the drafting process)
Estimated time to draft: 3 months 6 weeks
Actual time to draft: 4 weeks (26 days)
I originally estimated completing this draft in three months but with a complete outline, the luxury of time, and the motivation to do something Crazy, I sensed that it wouldn’t take much time.
A week after I started drafting, I shortened my goal to 6 weeks. But even with a tighter deadline I was knocking out my daily word count goals, writing 2000-3000 words a day. At the two-week mark I had already reached my midpoint, and it was becoming clearer and clearer that I could finish by mid-April if I really wanted to.
I had planned to finish this draft on a Tuesday morning. But because I had unexpectedly gotten so far on Monday afternoon, I just knew I could finish this draft a day earlier. With that motivation, I locked in and ended up churning out 4000 words that day—and successfully typed “the end” on my manuscript.
I was setting high goals for myself, yet I continued to exceed them. And that drive to keep going, to keep pushing myself harder, is what motivated me to finish as fast as I did.
screenshots from my daily accountability messages, from my better word count days
Even with this tight goal, this is not to say that I never took breaks. With the speed and the amount of work I was doing per day, it was only a matter of time before I crashed out. So to minimize burnout, I treated the schedule for my drafting time like a full-time job—a luxury I have at this time in my life, since I was laid off last year.
9am-5pm, Monday to Friday, was time dedicated to drafting. Once 5pm hit it was time to clock out, and no writing on weekends*.
(* …okay only a little bit. But it was mostly rewriting scenes that had already been written, instead of adding new words to the draft.)
I probably could’ve finished this draft in 3 weeks if I had written every day, but I’m also aware of my limits. And I know that I can’t write productively if my brain is tired, ultimately slowing down the process in the end anyway.
the “fix it later” mentality
One of the reasons I could fly through this draft was because I resisted the urge to look back while writing. And believe me, that wasn’t easy.
Early in my writing career, I had always been an author that edits as she goes. My brain just doesn’t let me continue until I fix the thing that’s bothering me—that’s how I function as a person and by extension, as a writer. Even with the knowledge that editing while drafting slowed me down, I accepted it as part of my process.
However, once I set a goal and gave myself a self-imposed deadline, that helped me to continuously look forward instead of looking back.
Of course I ran into flaws while I was drafting, and I was cringing at the fact that I wasn’t fixing them Right Now. But I just kept telling myself:
Write it bad before you write it better.
This is a mantra I developed to help me put words on the page, along the lines of “you can’t edit words that don’t exist”. It’s a reminder to myself that even if the framework is bad, at least the framework exists. At least it gives me words to work off of. And if the idea does end up being totally unfixable, at least I’m getting the “bad” ideas out of the way.
As for the flaws I discovered, I made note of them in the in-line comments, but I also created a separate word doc called “Draft 1 Flaws”—using Google Docs’ checkbox function to make a checklist for revisions.
This document is generally outlined by chapter, but I also created sections for character arcs, relationships, plot holes, and pacing. Keeping track of the flaws while writing helped put them out of my mind, and this will also be a good foundation for my revision plan when I begin making one.
a good idea (the book’s premise)
This is honestly the biggest, if not the best motivator, for finishing this draft as fast as I did.
Ever since I finished Book 1, I wondered if I would ever discover a new wip idea that would inspire me as much. Book 1 is the book of my heart, and after I sent it out on submission, I feared that I’d never find the same joy and passion in writing. Honestly, that’s why Book 2 took two years to draft—because while I will always love it, it never matched up to the impossible expectations I had in my head.
But Book 3 gave me back the drive I had been searching for. A tennis book was an idea that had been brewing in the back of my mind for some time. Making it speculative was a challenge, but a challenge I wanted to try.
You have to be passionate about the idea for any of these crazy goals to be possible. If you’re not passionate about it, if your heart isn’t into it, then you won’t have the necessary motivation to move forward.
what’s next?
So I’ve drafted an entire book in less than a month. What happens now?
First is rest. I’ve been pushing myself so hard and while I loved writing this book, I also know my brain needs a break. For about a week, I’ll be using this time to implement some self-care, catch up on my TBR, and also work on the job applications I’ve been putting off.
Then for a month, I’m doing character work and diving into research. What this entails is writing out scenes from other character’s POVs, and deepening my character + relationship profiles. I also skipped a lot of technical descriptions for the tennis gameplay while I was drafting, so I’ll be spending time doing research.
By focusing on these tasks, this will allow me to take some time away from the actual draft while still staying productive with this project.
When the month is over, I’ll start on a revision plan based on the notes I’ve already taken and reread what I’ve wrote with (hopefully) fresh eyes.
Will I be back again with another blog post on “how I revised my draft in 26 days”?
Definitely not.
Even though my goal is to get this book into my agent’s inbox by the end of the year, I want to take my time with Draft 2. I know there’s going to be a lot to fix, and unfortunately with revising, it can’t be rushed the same way drafting can.
But you know what? That’s okay. After this past month, maybe it’s time to slow down.
