Several years ago, I took an online novel writing course from Lary Crews. One of the things that has really stuck with me is Lary’s description of the first draft: pure green dreck.
So often writers – whether employees writing reports for work, novelists, or citizens writing to politicians or newspapers – want to sit down and write a masterpiece in one sitting. However, that usually doesn’t happen.
The purpose of the first draft is to get your ideas down on paper (or screen). The composer, musician, and author Virgil Thompson said, “Let your mind alone, and see what happens.” Don’t worry about sentence structure, organization, grammar – or even if you really want to use that idea. Just let the ideas flow.
You’ll probably end up with something that is “pure green dreck,” but you can take that dreck and turn it into a masterpiece … or at least a coherent report or letter.