Picking the Scab

I fully intended to let the first draft of my current story sit for the entire month of December before I looked at it again. December was going to be for reading and relaxing a bit. The momentum of November was still within me and the next story was pestering me, so I took the time to write a loose outline with a few plot points. No harm in going forward right. Next I thought I needed a timeline so I could tell the pacing of the story when I reopened my document for revisions. The timeline was my downfall, along with reading several articles about editing.  I went a full seven days without opening the first draft and picking at it. Today I lost the battle. I peeked.

First drafts are ugly. My first draft is hideous, with oozing festering boils. Looking at the mess made me want to delete the entire thing and start from the beginning. I didn't need to edit, I needed to rewrite the entire story. After a first sentence that invokes action, the rest of the first scene, chapter, spirals out of control. The tone changes a few times, and my MC isn't the strong woman I envisioned. A cute running gag I loved at the time seems silly.

Why didn't I wait? Why couldn't I just bask in the knowledge I wrote more words last month than I have in the past two years? Why did I think notes to myself in brackets were a good idea? The goal of NaNoWriMo is quantity vs quality, on some level. I took it to heart when I wrote my first draft. The suck is strong with my WIP.

In the end, I didn't delete my story. I did close the document and I'm not looking at it again till January 2014. The new year will be bringing many challenges and taming the wild unruly thing that is my first draft will be at the top of the list. On New Year's Day, when people are nursing their hangovers from the previous night's festivities, I will be opening up the first draft and tackling it head on, one crappy paragraph at a time.