Publish your first drafts!

The thrill and risk of showing your work early

I was listening to a recent episode of the excellent podcast Ctrl Alt Delete, featuring guest author Matt Bell talking about his novel writing guide book Refuse to be Done. It’s a very good listen:

Matt and Emma’s points chime with most of the writers I interviewed while producing the Writing Life podcast. Accepted wisdom goes something like this:

1. First drafts are usually quite bad

2. This is completely fine, and a necessary part of the process

3. Redrafting is essential

4. Books require extensive editing before becoming readable