I finished the first draft of That’s Punk at the end of October. I started it in June of 2022 (I think). The story idea seized upon me while I was working on other things and I couldn’t get it out of my head. I ended up blasting out the outline for it one night, thinking that might get it out of my system enough that I could concentrate on my other projects again.
It didn’t work.
I ended up coming to sort of compromise with the story eating my brain. I would write it on Sundays, writing as much or as little as I wanted and revising as I went along. This was new for me. I usually write a first draft as fast as I can and deal with the carnage later during the revisions.
This was how I proceeded for over a year. I took my time. At one point, I even went back to the beginning and revised everything I had written. I’d never done that with any other first draft.
After the big revision, I realized that it was time to start wrapping it up, but doing it quickly would not happen. I had too much left to write and too many other projects going on. For much of 2024, I was working on four podcasts as well as revising What Happened to the Man in the Cabin?, which needed a lot of work. Months of work. I didn’t have a lot of time to commit to a big daily word count. I settled on at least 500 words a week. It didn’t matter when I wrote them or how much I wrote at one time, as long as I hit at least 500 words a week. It wasn’t a lot, but it was consistent progress and that had to be good enough while I was busy.
The small, but mighty steady progress paid off. By the time I finished revising What Happened to the Man in the Cabin?, I was in a good position to made a real push towards the finish line. I went from at least 500 words a week to at least 500 words a day, usually more than that. The 2,500+ words I wrote a week rushed me along. I had given myself until the end of 2024. One final push had typing “the end” before the end of October.
The one concession I made in my bid to get the first draft wrapped up before the end of the year was that I stopped revising as I went along. Once I started making a set word count, I stopped looking back. It was full steam ahead. This may or may not hurt me when it comes time to revise the whole thing, but I’m not going to worry about that until I get there.
What I ended up with by writing a first draft this way was the longest thing I’ve ever written. That’s Punk clocked in at over 145,000 words. I never thought I’d ever write anything this long. I also learned something about trying new methods of writing. That fast as lightning brain dump of a first draft works, but so does slow and methodical. Some projects I can afford to have the patience on. Maybe next time, I’ll actually give myself a chance to do the revise-as-I-go thing for the whole trip. Or maybe I’ll try a whole new approach to getting a first draft done.
Even if nothing ever comes of That’s Punk in the long run, I’ve learned some valuable lessons that I can apply to future projects.
And maybe something will come from one of them.
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