Well, about to take wing...

[anghara]

I won't be taking my laptop with me this trip, so no blogging for a week or so. I'll report back when I return from the conference. In the meantime, should anyone have anything to say, or anything that you might really really want me to blog about when I return (yes, a couple of new friends on my flist, welcome and this includes you) comments are open. In case you need a starter thought for a conversation, here's something that I've been struck by in several forums recently. Writers talk a lot about "first draft" but it seems to me that the exact meaning of those words tends to vary rather widely between individual scribes. Something that one would call a "First" draft another terms a "zeroth" draft (there's a concept) while yet a third doesn't consider having finished a "first" draft until it's a POLISHED "first" draft - so we have a curve ranging from raw thought blurted onto paper to something that's almost ready to be submitted to an editor. Any thoughts...? What - if you are a writer - do YOU consider to be your "first draft"?

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Have a good time!

My first draft is that which is sent to the editor. It might go through many, many iterations before then.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

My first draft is what I have when I've got a completed manuscript with no things skipped over. Since I tend to write fairly clean drafts, the version that gets sent to my editor is usually more of a 1.5, with all subsequent revisions asymptotically approaching v.2.0.

This book, though, I have been revising as I go, which throws the usual pattern all to hell.

[wldhrsjen3.livejournal.com]

Oh, have a wonderful trip!

Erm, I'm still learning my process, but right now my "first draft" is the first one I let anyone else read. It may truly be the first complete draft, or it might be...oh, like version 1.3 or 1.4, depending on how much scrambling it took before I felt like the story was solid. :)

[pixelfish.livejournal.com]

Still learning my process as well, but first draft is the first full version of anything that gets to completion. This does mean that parts of a full first draft have first and second drafts of scenes INSIDE them, but I guess I go by the piece as a whole. (Technically there have been three or four drafts of the first few chapters of the Novel of Doom, but only one FIRST draft for the whole.)

[countesslovlace.livejournal.com]

I consider it a first draft when it's a complete story. Usually I do a revision on it and then take it to my writer's group or other writers who do mutual feedback with me. I then process their comments and do a second draft. The second draft is sometimes shown to a different group of writers for more feedback.

I was at one point collaborating on a story and sent the other collaborator an almost finished draft with a couple of holes in it that needed filling in. I considered that a rough draft but not a first draft.

[kaichi-satake.livejournal.com]

For me, first draft is the completed novel as it has spewed from my head. No revisions beyond fixing obvious typos and grammatical errors that slap me in the face. Anything beyond that is a second draft. After second draft, I only label it a different draft if major changes have been made to plot, character development or structure.

[brownnicky.livejournal.com]

My first draft is the brain dump plus some tidying up - punctuation and typos mainly but also sorting out continuity issues, cutting out the dull bits and making sure it flows. That draft is usually my submission draft.

[david-de-beer.livejournal.com]

First draft is the first time I write THE END. I edit a lot as I work, sometimes starting over even, etc, so it all kind of balances out. That get it all down and revise later doesn't work so well for me, it's not the way I work best. My way is slower, because I'm forever going back and back over it and structural mistakes can be disastrous to rectify later. But...it's the best way for me.
When it says THE END for the first time? I'm ready to go to market.