5 ways to keep your sanity while 1st draft-ing

Having fun while writing a 100k word manuscript, knowing your purpose, setting goals and meeting them, all while sipping ice coffee.

I have finished my first draft.

If you have written books before, you know how *soothing* this feels.

After a month of writing, I feel in love with my story even more. I cried when Hans did, laughed at Maximilian's clumsiness, felt tired like Malka was after a mission.

Now, I just want to celebrate. So I decided to make you a gift, the five most important things that helped me through the process. I wouldn't have made it without them.

“Have fun throughout the process. Otherwise, it's never going to work.”

1. What am I doing?

The purpose of a first draft is getting the story on paper. It's okay to leave indications for your second draft saying "instert character 1 and 2 arguing here" or "insert clever line here". You can always come back to it later, and if you think writing that scene is boring, it will be a boring scene to read. Better to cut it, maybe?

Write and have fun while doing it, because the road is long and you want the landscape to be beautiful and the company to be amazing. Gather all your teas, chips and blankets. We're going writing.

2. Allow yourself to not write. Or to write bad.

It doesn't have to be perfect because it never will be. Not even Stephen King's first drafts are perfect. Well, maybe for that we'll have to ask him. But anyway.

The editing will come later. Right now, just let yourself write with your own flow.

3. Set a goal, and meet it

Think about writing 100k words. Scary, eh? Now, think about writing 2000 today. Then, do it again. Do it for 50 days, and you'll have a first draft.

Setting daily goals helps you keeping your head and productivity high, and it's a good way to have that story fully written.

Now, 2000 words is too much for you? That's totally fine. Set a time goal, divide it for your target number of words, and find your daily goal. For example, I wanted my novel to be done in fifity days, as I said before. I knew it would have been roughly 100k words long, since it's sci-fi fantasy (bent genre), so I calculated 100,000/50 = 2000.

Or, if you prefer, dedicate a definite amount of time to your WIP every day, like one hour, or two hours.

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These tips were the ones that really saved my life, and I found them online and on YouTube. One video I found very interesting was made by Alexa Donne, a published author. Check her out!

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Happy WIP, and may your publication dreams come true!

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