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I completed the first draft of my ‘Beauty’ story on schedule today – it weighs in at 7,434 words but I suspect that will change when I start editing shortly.
It was harder than I expected. I’m using the short stories I write as ways to experiment with writing methods, and for the last one I outlined and plotted heavily. For this one, I came up with some ideas for scenes I would want to see in it, but no real outline. And it made getting from beginning to end a lot harder for me.
I liked the ‘discovery writing’ aspects, and some elements revealed themselves quite late on in the writing process which enhanced the story, but the first draft is a lot more disjointed than my last (outlined) one. When I came up with a new idea I had to either make a note and come back to fill in the stuff beforehand, or go back and edit mid-writing. I suspect that future stories will be outlined much more carefully, as I end up doing that discovery at that point and making changes much earlier in the process is a lot simpler.
But I’m celebrating the win! It’s done, and I have something to get on with editing!