All in all, it took me about three months to write the first draft of Charlie. It took me two years to edit, and I’m sure he’ll see more revisions still before he gets where he’s going.

I talked in an earlier post about how important it is to write the first draft without a filter. The first draft is for creation. Let the story bubble and burst forth. If there is a particular description you like, include it–if you think there is potential for a funny dialogue, write it. Leave the destruction for the editing phase.

I never plotted Charlie before I sat down to write, so everyday when I sat at my keyboard I would watch as the story unfolded. I rarely thought about what was going to happen in Charlie beyond the next day’s writing, and I believe that it helped keep Charlie fresh and natural. If I had plotted Charlie beforehand, I’d have struggled to make the story fit the contours of my outline. Instead I let Charlie breathe.

And in places I paid for it. The first time I sat down and read my manuscript upon completion, it made me almost sick. I had convinced myself that I’d written something worth writing, but the pages of Charlie were filled with rambling narration and out-of-place dialogue. The story crawled in the beginning, and why not? While writing Charlie, I had no direction in the first 50 pages. I didn’t know where Charlie was going, or why he was going there, and it showed.

But there was a lot of good in the early manuscript. The characters were compelling–even endearing at times. I found myself laughing out loud during long dialogues. And when the story finally revealed itself, it was engaging. What’s more, it was unique. I’d never read a book like the one I’d just written, and even through all the noise, I could see a gem.

So I edited. I knew what I hated about the book, so I struck it. I was heartless. Even pieces that I loved got cut if they didn’t build story. The pieces that did work in the story, I amplified. I worked to broaden characters, sharpen dialogue, and deepen plot. Where I saw recurring themes, I enhanced them.

Everything I lost from Charlie turned into back story. It’s all just something else I know about Charlie’s world that can help me tell his story better. It still exists, but I’m the only one who needs to know.

The main story in Charlie never changed. The arc remained more or less the same, but Charlie’s world underwent severe contractions and expansions. The first draft of Charlie was 95,000 words. The most recent draft is 76,000, but out of those original 95,000 words, I’d be surprised if 25% remain. I would imagine that I’ll lose more of those still before Charlie finds his way into print.

Thanks for reading.

“I used to tell interviewers that I wrote every day except for Christmas, the Fourth of July, and my birthday. That was a lie. The truth is that when I’m writing, I write every day, workaholic dweeb or not. That includes Christmas, the Fourth, and my birthday.” –Stephen King

Today, I’d like to take this space to talk a little bit about Charlie.

Charlie is my Middle Grade manuscript. It’s in great shape at about 76,000 words, and ready to be represented. I don’t talk about him often, but since this area of the site has been devoted to writing and editing, I think it would be foolish not to talk about how I spend a good deal of my writing time.

Charlie is my fallback. I wrote the first draft of the book as my senior thesis at UW-Madison. It took all three months of the semester, but when the final bound copy was due on my professor’s desk, I was ready with all 282 pages of it. I was surprised by my output. I’d never written anything over 15 pages before, and suddenly I was knocking off 15-20 manuscript pages per day. I’ve talked about the Myth of Inspiration in this space before, but I think that the first draft of Charlie was the first time I ever tunderstood the power of honest-to-god work while writing.

I kept a tight regimen. I wrote six days a week, starting at eight o’clock every morning. I didn’t constrain myself with any artificial time limits, but calculated early in the semester that if I were able to produce five manuscript pages per day, that I’d be able to easily knock out 300 pages through the course of the semester. So I set my goal at five pages.

At first, it took a while to get there. Charlie was in his infancy, and a lot was spent plotting out the details of my characters’ world. I didn’t concern myself with plot, which is evident re-reading the first draft. I had a general direction I wanted to take the story, and was happy to let my characters do the walking. Once the story gained momentum–and once my characters began to take on lives of their own–I found myself burning through my five page goal in my first hour at the keyboard.

So I extended it. I doubled my daily goal to ten pages, and within a week I’d extended it to fifteen. Pretty soon I’d decided that instead of setting a page limit, I would try to write an arc per day. Needless to say, the manuscript pages piled up.

Of course, most of what I wrote was useless. Not useless, useless–but a good deal of early Charlie had no business being on the page. A lot of it was great back-story. Even more of it was built of wonderful little pieces of dialog or character mannerisms that brought texture and vibrancy to Charlie’s world. But as the caretaker of Charlie’s world, I needed to be a filter. Not in the first draft, mind you.

The power and the utility of the first draft of Charlie–the power of all first drafts–is that it was written without that filter in place. The first draft of Charlie allowed me to put all of that world-building dialog and all of those humorous mannerisms down on the page. The first draft of Charlie made those things real, but as the filter between Charlie and the audience, I’m responsible for building an engaging world. That world existed in Charlie’s first draft, but Charlie wouldn’t begin to shine until editing.

Next: Editing.

So, it’s been a laughably long time since I’ve updated here, but things have been hectic. I’ve had an offer accepted on a house, have been doing a bit of freelance, and have been actively searching for something more permanent job-wise in the Fox Valley. The PAC is hiring a copywriter, which is perfectly in line with my skill set, but jobs are scarce and competition is stiff.

I’ve been working diligently on my own writing to fill the void, and I’m very near completing the second draft of Charlie. A lot has changed since Charlie was in his infancy, but the spirit of the book remains in tact. I think after I polish the last 50 pages or so I’ll be left with something crisper and cleaner that will be ready to withstand the scrutiny of the publishing world.

This is a brief post after a long lull, I know, but I’ll leave you with the following nugget:

Before William Faulker published his first novel, he was the post master of his college town. As a postmaster he was notoriously fickle, opening the office on days it suited him, closing it on days it didn’t. He acted as jazz-era spam filter. He threw out catalogues and other bulk mailings, and kept the magazines he liked to read.

When it became apparent that his days at the post office were numbered, Faulker decided to beat his bosses to the punch and submitted this–one of his finest pieces of writing in my opinion. Enjoy.

“As long as I live under the capitalistic system I expect to have my life influenced by the demands of moneyed people. But I will be damned if I propose to be at the beck and call of every itinerant scoundrel who has two cents to invest in a postage stamp. This, sir, is my resignation.”