So how’s your November writing project coming along?

Making the progress you were hoping for? Maybe you’re producing a number of pages above and beyond what you were expecting? Or are you feeling trapped in a morass of agony and frustration because the words just won’t cooperate?

No matter what your output, good on you for keeping at it. Only 20 days to go!

For the sake of this discussion, let’s say at month’s end you have a finished draft. Most likely a first draft.

How would you rate it? Good? Bad? Somewhere in the middle? Or, if you’re like a lot of writers, you’ll label it “okay, but needs a lot of work.”

And you know what? That’s totally cool.

That’s the point of the first draft. Don’t worry about if it’s perfect or not. It’s not. But it is helping you lay down the foundation for your story so you can spend each consecutive rewrite fixing any and all things that need to be fixed.

And there will be a lot of them.

Again, still cool.

Some writers consider just writing the first draft as the biggest obstacle. You’re literally creating something out of nothing. Compared to that, every subsequent draft gets a little easier. You might even be surprised how many new ideas you come up with it as you go along.

The first draft is indeed a necessary evil. At times it probably feels like a neverending slog, but once you actually do finish it, the hard part’s out of the way. All your initial ideas are now assembled into what may or may not resemble what you’re trying to create. It may not be anywhere near the point you want it to be, but you’re definitely better off than when you started.

Don’t just embrace the opportunity of getting through the first draft. Grab it with both hands, hold it tight, and run like hell.