It took me quite a long time to achieve the level of groove I’ve got now. I’ll be happier with it when I start seeing what sort of finished stories I start to produce. But right now, I’m more interested in my daily progress.
Before the AS3K, I used to carry around two legal pads, a white one for draft when I couldn’t or wouldn’t carry my laptop around, and a yellow one for notes. Nowadays, I don’t have much need for my white pad. I do all of my drafting on the AlphaSmart, and other writing and planning in my notebook or my canary pad. So yeah, I got a new style, as the kids say. The important thing is whether or not my new process helps me produce on a daily basis, regardless of how I perceive the “quality” of the first draft.
Because right now, I really don’t know where this new piece of mine, “The one with the warlock JuCo,” is going. I honestly wonder whether there’s a story in here. I think the initial scene that inspired the story in the first place is compelling and could maybe be turned into some sort of light flash piece. But beyond that, I’m running into the “Okay, why should anyone care?” question. It’s tempting to quit, but I won’t. It’s more likely I’ll be tempted to sit and type pages and pages of notes and summaries and shit–I’ve got 9 pages of “supplementary material” that thus far has helped me write a mere 7 pages of first draft. What point, if any, does a cost-benefit analysis come into play?
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