If you didn’t read this week’s post “…and the draft horse you rode in on.” I will read it to you, dramatically and enthusiastically, below. 👇
Reading commences as soon as you hit play. Enjoy!
Notes from the Captain
Crew!
Long time no talk to. As you may know if you read last week’s post (link above), I’ve put a stake in the ground and made a lofty and declarative statement about shouldering the harness and being the draft horse and attempting to complete a first draft of a novel. What’s it going to be about? I have not yet decided but have a couple of ideas. First steps: pulling at the threads of each idea to see if they can support a book.
Going forward, paid crew members like yourself will be privy to occasional (monthly?) updates on how that progress—and process—is going. Not sure what form that will take, so we are, as always, playing this by ear. Putting that seashell up to our shell-likes and interpreting what we hear.
I won’t do too much of a pre-amble this week. Links below 👇, video above 👆. Glad to have you onboard for this exciting and terrifying journey.
See you out there.
Your Captain, Janeen 🫡
Thangs from this episode…
👩✈️ Draft talk from authors
In compiling the notes to make this week’s video, I playhead-skipped through a lot of author talk looking for mentions of quotes I’d seen. This means I haven’t watched everything in its entirety (yet). That said, here are some links or vision of some primo “inside the process” talkery.
Famous Writers on First Drafts - just a list of quotes
I haven’t finished watching/listening to this 👇 (I used the transcript to find relevant quotes for today’s video) but you bet your house keys I’m gonna finish it. Seems to be chock full of words I need to hear. Example:
You can just get a sense of are you working, are you making forward progress? What’s actually happening. I also love that because it emphasizes for me that nobody is ever meant to read your first draft. Your first draft can go way off the rails, your first draft can absolutely go up in flames, it can — you can change the age, gender, number of a character, you can bring somebody dead back to life. Nobody ever needs to know anything that happens in your first draft. It is you telling the story to yourself.
- Neil Gaiman, from this 👇
“For me, it’s always been a process of trying to convince myself that what I’m doing in a first draft isn’t important. One way you get through the wall is by convincing yourself that it doesn’t matter. No one is ever going to see your first draft. Nobody cares about your first draft. And that’s the thing that you may be agonizing over, but honestly, whatever you’re doing can be fixed…For now, just get the words out. Get the story down however you can get it down, then fix it.”
— Neil Gaiman, (?)
Umberto Eco (RIP) didn’t start writing novels until he was 48. That’s only a four year head start on where I am. There’s still hope. He did write other things prior to novels - he was a scholar of medieval studies and semiotics - but that’s not my point. His first novel was, of course, The Name of the Rose.
I mentioned Anne Lamot’s Bird by Bird in the video, which is a great book for hyping yourself up, but here is a full-length talk from her on the topic of writing and why as a writer you should and can stick at it. Here’s a quote from it on first drafts. (The embedded video starts just before she says this bit.)
“Every single writer you love writes terrible first drafts. Terrible. Unreadable. But if you’re writing a novel it’s going to take you a whole first draft to every know who your characters are.”
In watching that, she reminded me of this gem of a quote about writing from E.L. Doctorow:
“Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”
- E.L. Doctorow, Writers At Work: The Paris Review Interviews, 2nd Series
I also mention the book Writing down the Bones in the video. I can’t remember if it’s good or not, but just dipping into it today and it looks like it has some solid pep talk giddy up vibes.
Speaking of Cormac McCarthy’s Typewriter (it’s an Olivetti Lettera 32), his old trust typewriter was up for auction in 2009. Here’s a story about it:
No Country for Old Typewriters: A Well-Used One Heads to Auction
He bought that ol’ clackity-clack in 1963 at a pawn shop for $50 (or so the story goes) and when the hammer fell at that auction, the final sale price was $254,500, more than 10 times its high estimate of $20,000. It went to an unnamed American Collector. Please let it be Tom Hanks!
Ok, that’ll do for kicks in the pants (for myself.)
👩✈️ Draft/Draught Horse Plow Talk
Any plow-curious folks out there?
Plowing links:
How to Plow with Draft Horses - the basics
Draft Horse Breed Guide - all about draft horses
How to Plough for Beginners - Which this is not for draft horses, this is where I got the “never use a cow in your neighbour's field as a marker reference.” from.
👩✈️ The Budweiser Clydesdales
I haven’t watched a Superbowl since the dude in the NY Giants caught that ball on his helmet so… are the Budweiser Clydesdales still going strong in Superbowl ad rotation?
Regardless, I found and deeply sincere and tear-to-the-eye (but you know, also a little too much hokey) video celebration of the team and the journey to become a horse that is capable to upholding the tradition, yadda-yadda, and snagged a few snippets of plow pulling footage for my video this week. Yup, this is where it’s from.
Unfamiliar with the Bud/Clyde ads? Here are a couple. Go lil’ dankey! 🫏
Rocky montage.
The very first.
I read folks think this one is the best?👇 I rolled my eyes. But not my sport, not my horses. The best use of a draft horse is writin’ first drafts, remember?!
👩✈️ Australian Cultural Exchange
For moments where the language of cricket can be used for cheatin’ hearts. Classic Australian band.
Thanks for listening/watching and sharing this week. If you want to chat about any of the concepts in this week’s post—or just in general or some book talk—feel free to leave a comment for the Captain (it me.)
Do. Make. Be.
Ask for help if you need it.
I’ll see you out there.
🫡
Shameless Podcast Plug
Listen to audio versions of early issues of The Stream on my podcast, Field of Streams, available on 👉 all major podcasting platforms 👈
Here’s Apple
Behind the Streams, Ep. 55: "Draft"