Stephen King writes the same amount as the rest of us!

[Shoe]

I suspect we all view "drafts" differently. I know I have technically reviewed and revised a first draft a dozen times before I've ever typed the initial "The End." I think most writers would say the same.

But no matter how good the first draft might be, I know if I (me, not you or you) put it away for a few months for gestation, another review and revision will produce a better, tighter novel, which I then call the "second draft." Some time later I'll produce the third draft, usually involving just a tweak or two. While the different drafts are in various stages of gestation, I'm usually in some stage of production on the next book.

[Lynn]

I work on more than one book at a time. I have one that's been sitting at 20,000 words since May. When I go back to it, I'll start from the beginning and go through it and keep going until I stop again, probably at the end the next time, but who knows. I've restarted it once but only added another 2k words to it. Just not ready to go back to it yet and I'll eventually figure out why. So any gestating I do is done the first time through for me. I guess you'd say it's built into the process. :D

[Simon Haynes]

My plan is to finish my WIP, put it up for pre-order for a Nov 30 release (or thereabouts), and then make a good start on book 2.

I haven't used preordering for a long, long time, but it should satisfy my 'release it now' instinct while giving me time away from the novel. Then, just before the release date, I can go through it one last time on paper.

Or I could change my mind again and just release the thing when it's ready. There's no law against giving it a brush-up a month after release.

[Bill Hiatt]

That's why I put in the parenthetical comment about Lynn. I don't know if she is so meticulous that she doesn't need an editor and maybe she doesn't consider a proofread for typos an edit. Obviously I can't speak for her but as a fairly meticulous writer, I need both. And some of us when we refer to a first draft are talking about what is, in fact, a heavily edited 'first draft'. 😜

I understand that some people make a note to add a scene or change wording and don't rework their draft as they go, but I just can't work that way and don't particularly want to. What I do - which as you say sounds similar to what you do - works for me. What works for someone else is their business. I'm not going to say it's wrong, but the 'your first draft will be crap' theory is not one that I ever bought. It may need tweaking and some work, but I finish a first draft that with a proofread (because I suck at proofreading) could be published and not be all that different from what will be the finished novel.

For the record, I never advanced a "first draft will be crap" theory. I said that more often than not, it was not going to be a person's best work. But I didn't announce even that as some kind of universal truth. Three times in the comment to which I think you're responding, I pointed out that it didn't apply to everyone and/or cited exceptions.

Perhaps, as Lynn suggests, the problem is differences in the way we interpret the word draft. Back in the early 1980s, when I wrote my first novel (which was never published), I was composing on a typewriter, and while I might add some handwritten notes, for the most part, revision meant a separate draft. Since the dawn of word processing, those kind of discrete draft phases have become less and less necessary. Some people might look at my process and define it as multiple drafts. Other people might look at it and see various stages of revision. Like you, I don't necessarily wait for an entirely separate draft to fix things I've already noticed. And whether making minor changes on another read-through should be counted as a draft I think could well be questioned.

In general, I think that most writers benefit from revision. What form that revision takes, whether it's a single draft that evolves over time or multiple drafts, is probably not important at all. Writers use very different processes, in part because human brains don't all work the same way. It's a mistake to assume that one approach is inherently better than another.

[Shoe]

For the record, I never advanced a "first draft will be crap" theory.

No one did, though JRTomlin did state "I do not understand the idea that you should do a sloppy job on a first draft," perhaps assuming that was the assumption.

However, there are famous authors who advocate vomiting out a first draft, knowing it will be "sh*t" (like Hemingway), in order to have something to work with. The real message there is don't sweat the first draft, which makes me wonder if I'm too meticulous with my own. My "process" might actually flow faster if I refused to edit as I go, knowing the fine-tuning will come with the second and third pass.

[JRTomlin]

I admit that is my assumption about sprint writing just from my own experience and the truism that 'your first draft will be crap' is a common belief. I may have been mistaken that some of the posters in this thread share it. I didn't really mean to put words in anyone's mouth.

Some people can write just vomiting out a draft. I couldn't do it that way. As Bill or someone said, our brains work in various ways so the same process won't work for all of us. But I also think that the fact that we now can easily edit as we go because we write using a different technology (or most of us do) encourages us to do that. I see no reason not to go back and fix as I think of it. For me, it doesn't take more time than searching for what I meant to fix later. But that's me.

Hemingway couldn't easily go back and redo what he wrote yesterday. I am more thankful than I can say for wordprocessing.

[TimothyEllis]

Some people can write just vomiting out a draft. I couldn't do it that way. As Bill or someone said, our brains work in various ways so the same process won't work for all of us. But I also think that the fact that we now can easily edit as we go because we write using a different technology (or most of us do) encourages us to do that. I see no reason not to go back and fix as I think of it. For me, it doesn't take more time than searching for what I meant to fix later. But that's me.

Me too. I edit what I wrote last session before beginning writing new. But I also go back and fix anything as it comes up. For example, I changed a character name last night. A quick find-replace later, and its done.

Hemingway couldn't easily go back and redo what he wrote yesterday. I am more thankful than I can say for wordprocessing.

Anyone who wrote by hand, or by typewriter had the draft method forced on them. The advent of computers and word processing changed all that for the people who started writing with them.

I see the whole multiple drafts thing as typewriter mentality.

WP mentality is fixing as you go, tweaking as you go, adding in as you go, and editing as you go. The first full read for me usually involves extra stuff going in, but it's all in the way of embellishment and explanation, rather than changing anything already written. I rarely ever take stuff out.

While some may consider each pass I make as a draft, I don't. The only time something becomes a draft is if it serves as the starting point for something new, such as a second edition. And I've only done 2 of them. Technically, my book 6 novella could be considered a draft, since it was rewritten as a novel, but since the novella version sells just as well as the newer novel, it isn't really.

[Bill Hiatt]

For the record, I never advanced a "first draft will be crap" theory.

No one did, though JRTomlin did state "I do not understand the idea that you should do a sloppy job on a first draft," perhaps assuming that was the assumption.

However, there are famous authors who advocate vomiting out a first draft, knowing it will be "sh*t" (like Hemingway), in order to have something to work with. The real message there is don't sweat the first draft, which makes me wonder if I'm too meticulous with my own. My "process" might actually flow faster if I refused to edit as I go, knowing the fine-tuning will come with the second and third pass.

In some thread at some point, I read the idea that it's better to somewhat separate creative from editorial processes. The idea was that the creative process can be fast--get the ideas down on paper as rapidly as you can. Then go back and edit.

While it's true that somewhat different thought processes are involved, the notion that the editing function somehow stifles the creative function, so that the two shouldn't be used together, is not valid, at least in my experience. If one considers an extreme case--someone who gets stuck on page 2 and takes forever to get beyond there because of rewriting over and over--then yes, it might be good to put the editing part aside until later, but in that example, the problem is more like too much editing than editing at the wrong time.

Free and fast writing can be a good technique for breaking writers' block, but again, that doesn't mean that you have to produce a whole first draft that way, especially when you probably aren't going to have recurring writer's block on the same project.

[JRTomlin]

I can't say I never take out later. A beta reader may point out that I described that once already so it is redundant to describe it again, so I take one out, but those are always minor changes. There have been rare occasions when I decide that a certain scene just plain doesn't work, but very few. By the time I finish a novel, I am at least close to the line edit stage. I can't think of a single time that I made anything close to a major plot change.

[RiverRun]

Stephen King says in On Writing to write the first draft and put in a drawer for at least 6 weeks, then take it out again and start editing. He has a sample edit of his own work in the back of the book. It's mostly minor changes. He said he sometimes writes novellas between longer projects. So he builds rest time for his work into the process.

I read a great interview with Dean Koontz years ago and can't find it now, but he perfects every page before moving on. Takes him a ten hour day to write 6 pages or so. But when it's done, it's done.

When I write I'm continually re-reading and tweaking things. My first word processor was like a miracle. But I never thought about the fact that I did this until I finished my first novel and thought, okay! Now the big edit. Took me a while to realize I had already done most of that without really noticing.

I've only written a few novels though, and when I've had time away from the book, I can see things that need work. Redundant paragraphs usually, or just errors. But I can't do a major re-write, altering the plot and rearranging the timeline and such. The book is already too solid for that by the time I get to the end.

So, I'm another writer who can never figure out how many drafts I've written.

[DrewMcGunn]

I'm with you on the first draft thing, Lynn. Mind you, I do send it to betas & an editor who suggest changes that I often make, but I do not understand the idea that you should do a sloppy job on a first draft. I always do the best writing I can whether it is my first draft or not.

I don't care what 'most writers tell you' because there is no difference in my 'editors' hat and my 'writer' hat. As a full-time and fairly long-time writer who makes a living at it, of course, I edit as I write. I honestly don't care what works for Stephen King although I'll listen to advise and then probably dismiss it as not working for me. As for Jerry Jenkins?  *cough* I'll be polite.

I think I'm with you and Lynn when it comes to our writing style. Long before the final chapter is written, there's been some heavy editing along the way. One thing that I do that's probably a bit on the uncommon side of things is that I'll post each chapter to a genre forum and let those beta volunteers have at it. They rarely critique my writing style, other than the occasional typo, but they're invaluable to catching things that a developmental editor might critique. I incorporate those changes along the way if need be.
Of course, sometimes after I finish a scene, I'll realize it fails to accomplish its goal. Then it gets rewritten before I'll let myself continue.
YMMV

[Simon Haynes]

One thing that I do that's probably a bit on the uncommon side of things is that I'll post each chapter to a genre forum and let those beta volunteers have at it.

I've done that with my last 7 or 8 novels, but I use alpha readers picked from my regular newsletter subscribers.  (A while back I selected the 100 or so most active and invited them to join my reading team.)

I post each chapter or so to a hidden section of my website, soon after I've written and revised them. Then I announce them to the closed list, along with a link.

If someone reports a typo I fix it immediately and upload the change, so I don't get 100 people reporting the same error.

There's a lot of pressure involved in sending a batch of 2-3 chapters out every 2-3 days, because I want to make sure they're absolutely ready. But at the same time, the feedback is handy, especially when some of them nag me for more or tell me to hurry up.

Keeps my nose to the grindstone, that's for sure.  It's just about 4am here now, and I stayed up this late to finish my 2500 words. (Busy day, couldn't get to it earlier.)

[Shoe]

Stephen King says in On Writing to write the first draft and put in a drawer for at least 6 weeks, then take it out again and start editing.

Putting a draft in a drawer for a few weeks while working on something else is essential to me (it's the "fresh eyes" thing). I may only end up changing or adding a few dozen words, but they can make a startling difference in the flow of the final manuscript (this is in addition to catching typos and repeated or omitted words).

[dgcasey]

Stephen King says in On Writing to write the first draft and put in a drawer for at least 6 weeks, then take it out again and start editing.

Putting a draft in a drawer for a few weeks while working on something else is essential to me (it's the "fresh eyes" thing). I may only end up changing or adding a few dozen words, but they can make a startling difference in the flow of the final manuscript (this is in addition to catching typos and repeated or omitted words).

That's the way I do it. I have my third Cold Shivers Nightmare finished as a first draft and it's sitting the "drawer" right now. I'll get through NaNo and then go back to it and get the edit done and then send it off to my editor. Hopefully it will be finished and ready to pub by New Year's.

[Maggie Ann]

I can read what I've written as it's uploaded from the AS to Word. I find a lot that way. Missing words, contradictions, maybe even a better way to write a phrase or sentence. Now that I think about it, I might be able to change the upload speed. Slow it down a bit. Then I can make a note of what needs to be fixed and not miss anything.

[Lorri Moulton]

Bill said, "unless you follow the pattern of editing the previous day's work at the beginning of the following day" and that's exactly what I do.  Not that it's the best or only way...just my way.  Then, my mom reads it. 

[Cover Wizard]

I'm at about 800 a day and writing my 2nd book, did you guys steadily rise after starting?

[okey dokey]

This discussion reminds me that the Mona Lisa was painted on the same size canvas I use.
What's the difference?
Talent, folks. Talent.