Drafting

Drafting a book manuscript is a little like building a tower with wooden blocks.

You build the foundations, thinking it’ll be just right.

Then you begin laying down the blocks. You build them up to a certain height and then realise – it’ll never get as high as you want it to with just those foundations beneath them. So you redo the foundations.

You try again – stacking the blocks again, but this time in a slightly different way. You see, you’ve learnt from the first attempt and you think you can make it better and stronger now.

This time, you reach a greater height than before, but then you realise once again that it still won’t hold. Back to the foundations. Rebuild it again, making more tweaks to the construction and the design. If that shaped block goes there… if that one could just be fitted in that spot instead… there!

Eventually, after a bit more of this, you come to the conclusion that it’s almost perfect. It’s come so far and it’s barely recognisable from the way it began. Funny, because when you first tried, it seemed like the most brilliant way to do it. Now it seems silly; there’s no way that original small base could have held such a tower. But you feel so proud that you realised this, and you were able to build it the way you wanted it in the end. Each time you looked at it with a discerning eye, you noticed a few little errors, some things that when changed gave the tower a more sleek, professional look.

Now, it’s the absolute best you could do. And there’s no better feeling in the world than knowing you’ve achieved something after working so hard.

PS – the second draft of our first book is complete! Tania and I have had our brains in overdrive and it’s had so many changes since the first draft, but it’s improved so much that I felt completely exhilarated working on it. Still a few more finishing touches and tweaks to be made, but it’s getting closer by the day.