You know.  The draft that hasn’t quite found itself yet.  Lots of fat to trim.  

Then, lo and behold, he saw a posting on the author’s Facebook page where she announced that she only wrote first drafts—never second drafts. 

My mind boggles at the idea of only writing a first draft.  I know Harlan Ellison is reputed to write pieces that are pristine right out of the typewriter—yes, he still uses a typewriter—and I have heard other authors tell stories about writing novels in a white-hot heat of only a few days or weeks before they're published.  But I can barely imagine it.

Do I mean that I write all the way through to the end, and that’s my “first draft,” then I start from Page 1 and rewrite everything?  Absolutely not.

I’m a “constant polisher.”  Currently, I’m writing a sequel in my African Immortals series called BLOOD PROPHECY, and it’s tough for me to jump into writing “cold.”  Typically, my writing day begins by scanning over PREVIOUS pages, often way back to Page 1…and I’m constantly amazed by the unnecessary sentences or unclear language that have missed my eye.  I immerse myself by editing, even if it’s only the previous chapter.  

Then, I’m ready to write!

Under that writing model, it’s very rare that I finish a novel and then have to go back to the beginning to do major revisions, unless it’s an editor suggestion.  By the time I finish, I’ve already been over the previous chapters countless times, obsessing over ever sentence, every

piece of dialogue, every gesture.  It is definitely not a “first draft.”

My husband, Steven Barnes, works under the opposite model—he writes a very rough first draft, often in the form of a screenplay, plows through to the end, and THEN polishes from the beginning again.  And again.  (It makes for a very interesting collaboration process!)   Often, Steve

says, he discovers what his book is ABOUT through the rewriting process. 

Flow state is my favorite part of writing—when it works right, it feels like floating through a dream.  The rest of the world vanishes. 

Editing isn’t as satisfying as flow, but over time I have come to enjoy editing nearly as much as I enjoy flow.  I feel a real surge of satisfaction when I realize that the last sentence in my paragraph should be cut—or it should be the first sentence instead.  Or when I trim the fat from the dialogue to make it less stilted, more compelling, more realistic.   It feels like bringing a photograph into clear, sharp focus.

The trick, of course, is knowing when to let go.  Often, deadlines help me make that decision.  Trust me, writers are making changes in their drafts down to the wire!

What is your writing process like?  Are you a “first draft” writer, a "polisher," or something in-between?  

And what do you think would happen to the quality of your work if you went back over your pages again?   

And again?