Another One Bites the Dust
August 14, 1999
9:51 a.m.
The story I've been working on is now officially a story in search of a title. I finished the first draft mere minutes ago. As I told Charles Eckert yesterday, I'm pretty sure it meets all the requirements of what Anne Lamott calls a "Shitty First Draft." But this is a good thing. Sure it is.   Kris Rusch and Dean Smith say to write a short story a week, and mail it off. They say if you do this, you will sell. I tend to agree with them, but I also hear and understand the hue and cry of people who say that's too hard, and that the work will be shoddy if rushed like that. Sometimes--maybe a lot more often than not--that's true. The first draft of my last story, for one ornery smelling example. But I suggest that rather than argue about the specific "hows", we look at the intent of Kris and Dean's proposal. The goal behind this approach is to develop a working environment that results in the production line constantly spitting out material. That's called "being a professional." I rarely write a story in a week's time. But when looked at over the course of several months, I think I average somewhere between 9-12 days between times when a new story is available for the market. This means I generally have several projects going at once. It took me two months+ to write "1 is True", but in that timeframe I also wrote "Just Say When" and put the finishing touches on "Phantom Lives" and wrote something else in there, too ... don't remember what it was. Oh...duh. I also wrote three *#@@!@! drafts of this untitled story. And during this last draft, I plotted another story (which actually has a working title, you'll be glad to hear--"For Love or For Mercy"--that may or may not stick around). I expect I'll write the first draft of "Love/Mercy" before I go back and do the second draft of the one I just finished. Then I'll write the second draft of "Love/Mercy." In the end, I'll be putting out a story about every 10 days (not quite Kris and Deanish, but nothing to sneeze at). And each story will have had a 20-30 day incubation period. Of course, maybe one or both of these stories will need a third draft. That's fine. I'll just start another story in there somewhere, and come out of it still averaging a story every 10-12 days at worst. The lesson: Don't get caught up in rhetoric. Just write. Do your best. Things will work out. Have a good weekend.  Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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"You need to know, confidently, that during revision you can fix anything, change anything to suit yourself." George Garrett Letters to a Fiction Writer |
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