Second Draft, Sort Of

The first few chapters are safely in the hands of trusted critique partners. So exciting! It took me about a week longer than I expected to get things in shape, but I wasn’t off my goal by far.

By the way, when you change the point of view in a story, do you know how many times you need to look at a chapter before you’ll be able to find every instance of the old POV? Me neither! Third person is still popping up everywhere I look.

I was reading a post by Anna David on Editor Unleashed the other day where she says she doesn’t know how to count her drafts. Being a very goal-oriented, make a list and cross things off it kind of person, I’m very motivated by knowing what draft I’m in. But that post made me reconsider this.

The first draft was clear, I wrote it front to back, no stopping. The second draft has been a much more iterative process. At first, I’ve focused heavily on the first fifty or so pages. Then I focused on the second fifty pages a ton. Then I went back to the first fifty pages to make sure they were set up properly so the stuff in the second fifty made sense. Should I be counting these as different drafts? Does it matter? No, not really.

I’m going to stick with calling it a second draft for now, because I know I’m further along than the first, and nowhere near the final polishing draft. I’m moving forward, and that’s really all that matters.