First Draft Suckage

I've been reading a lot of helpful articles about writing books: plotting, characterization, POV, description, dialogue, using passive voice, etc., and I came across an article (several very helpful articles actually, but one in particular that I'm talking about today) on Janice Hardy's blog called If at First You Don't Succeed....Then You Know You're Writing a First Draft. I particularly liked this article because I'm in the process of writing my first draft, and, well, it sucks. It doesn't suck in the sense that it's not going anywhere or that it's all a jumbled mess of gibberish with no plot or direction. It sucks in the sense that I already know it's going to need a lot of rewriting and reworking of scenes, additional scenes added, and I tell a lot instead of show, among other things.

For instance, the first 3 pages of my book are nothing but a giant info dump. The first chapter and part of the second chapter are written in 1st person present tense, but I kept finding myself slipping into 1st person past tense so from that point on I just wrote it in 1st person past tense. I've changed plot elements (for the better!) that I will have to go back in and edit and change around. It's for these reasons that I am suffering from first draft suckage.

Janice's article really made me understand that I'm not alone. I'm not the only writer whose first draft is so awful, and, even better, it's okay that my first draft is the way it is. Before I read that article, I was kinda freaking out about it. Now, not so much. She has several other very helpful articles on writing first drafts, completing first drafts, and just about every other aspect of writing a book. I definitely recommend checking out her blog no matter what stage of writing you're at.

Another problem I'm having is trying to keep myself from going back and editing things right now, especially the first chapter. But, I'd rather get my first draft completely done and then go back and start fixing things. On that note, I have written about 1600 words in the last 2 days. Not a lot, but not bad either. My biggest regret is that due to things out of my control so much time has passed since I first started writing this book (almost 3 years!). I try not to dwell on the fact that my book could have been finished a long time ago and could possibly have been published by now. On the other hand, I'm thankful that things happened the way they did because it makes me that much more determined to get it done this time. And if I succeed, then that's all that matters.

Disclaimer: I cannot be held accountable for any grammatical or punctuational mistakes in this blog post as it is after 2 am and I'm very tired.