Your First Draft’s Job Is to Exist

I edit writing.

Which means I need one fairly important thing from you before I can do my job:

Words.

Actual words.

On a page.

This is apparently controversial.

Because writers will do absolutely anything to avoid writing a bad first draft.

Research another source? Absolutely.

Change the title six times? Naturally.

Spend twenty minutes deciding whether the first sentence should say however or but?

Critical work.

Meanwhile, the document contains 173 words and has been open for three hours.

Here’s the problem:

Your first draft’s job is not to be good.

Your first draft’s job is to exist.

That’s it.

It does not need to be elegant. It does not need to be profound. It does not need to make you look like the brilliant writer you absolutely intend to become approximately three revisions from now.

It needs to give you something to revise.

Because you cannot edit the beautiful, fully formed version of the piece currently living in your imagination.

Very inconvenient, I know.

You have to put words on the page first.

Some of them will be bad.

Some will be repetitive.

One paragraph will probably wander into the woods and have to be retrieved later.

You may type [FIGURE OUT WHAT I MEAN HERE] and keep going.

This is all legal.

In fact, this is drafting.

The first draft is where you discover what you’re actually trying to say.

The second draft is where you start asking useful questions:

Does this opening work?

Do I need this paragraph?

Why did I explain the same idea three times?

Is this sentence doing anything besides showing everyone that I know how to use semicolons?

Could I cut twelve words and make this twice as strong?

Excellent questions.

Later.

Those are revision questions.

Asking them while you’re trying to get the first draft onto the page is like trying to decorate a house while the contractor is still pouring the foundation.

Please stop picking out throw pillows.

We do not have walls yet.

Write the awkward version.

Write the version that is too long.

Write the sentence you already suspect you’ll delete.

Leave yourself notes.

Use placeholders.

Repeat yourself.

Get the whole ugly little word-creature onto the page.

Then we can work.

Because an imperfect draft can be edited.

A nonexistent one is surprisingly resistant to feedback.

The first draft creates the material. Revision creates the writing.

So let your first draft do its job.

It does not need to impress anyone.

It just needs to exist.