It’s June!
It’s time to get a little crazy, go a little wild, ride the winds…
I am going all Jackson Pollock on this month!
For the first time in months I am going to be flinging my creative ink at the canvas of my new WIP without thought of editing and embracing the freedom and unadulterated joy in WRITING that First Draft!
“A dripping wet canvas covered the entire floor … There was complete silence … Pollock looked at the painting. Then, unexpectedly, he picked up can and paint brush and started to move around the canvas. It was as if he suddenly realized the painting was not finished. His movements, slow at first, gradually became faster and more dance like as he flung black, white, and rust colored paint onto the canvas. He completely forgot that Lee and I were there; he did not seem to hear the click of the camera shutter … My photography session lasted as long as he kept painting, perhaps half an hour. In all that time, Pollock did not stop. How could one keep up this level of activity? Finally, he said ‘This is it.’
Pollock’s finest paintings… reveal that his all-over line does not give rise to positive or negative areas: we are not made to feel that one part of the canvas demands to be read as figure, whether abstract or representational, against another part of the canvas read as ground. There is not inside or outside to Pollock’s line or the space through which it moves…. Pollock has managed to free line not only from its function of representing objects in the world, but also from its task of describing or bounding shapes or figures, whether abstract or representational, on the surface of the canvas.”
– Hans Namuth 1950
I love the first blush, the illicit intimacy and the head-rush of a First Draft. First Drafts are all about the Writer, the Creative, the Artist. I love simply getting lost in a first draft and a new story. I love meeting the new characters and watching their scenes in my mind’s eye like a movie. I love that the story can and will go anywhere and everywhere.
What do you love about first drafts?
________________________
In other exciting News just in from this weekend…The anthology that could…
Related articles
- My Debut Short Story | Release of Tales for Canterbury (kimkoningink.com)
- Why creativity is not about originality (romankrznaric.com)
- The joy of writing … starting young (wordznerd.wordpress.com)
- Bent Wrists Lesson 9: Cheer Camp for Writers (joyinthemoments.com)
- Fans remember Pollock (timesleader.com)
- Arts | Long Island: ‘The Persistence of Pollock’ Is at the Pollock-Krasner House (nytimes.com)
- Creativity and Suffering (poignantboy.wordpress.com)
Kim Koning 
Hey Kim, sorry I’m so late in getting over to this post. I went ahead and mentioned your awesome Sir Julius Vogel award at my post this week. That’s so cool.
And the first draft. Ahh, the first draft. I guess comparing it to love and/or lust is a good one. It’s amazing, wonderful and terrifying. You know where it wants to go but sometimes have no idea where it’s actually going or how you’re going to get there.
Wait a minute. Suddenly this is just sounding like I’m talking about sex 🙂
Anyway, congrats again.
Paul D. Dail
http://www.pauldail.com- A horror writer’s not necessarily horrific blog
Congrats again on the award. Good luck with that first draft.
Thanks Jaye 🙂
Congratulations! Definetely a deserved award.
How exciting 🙂
I am in love with my first draft as I am writing it.
In my head it is gorgeous and full and I’m thrilled that my idea is out there.
Then I re-read.
Oh dear…
I am not one to self-edit as I go–I write 200 mph to get the ideas and feelings out before they are gone.
I start every other sentence with So.
I can write a run-on sentence like nobody’s business.
I can go in several directions within one paragraph.
SO…then I have to edit.
*Sigh*
And, start dreaming of my next book…
Thanks hun 🙂
I love how you have described your experience with first drafts…
I love the you can get messy and chaotic and crazy with a first draft which is what I meant by going all Jackson Pollock on it.
Thanks so much for stopping by and commenting.
I hadn’t realized how lusty first drafts could be, at least not with my short stories. I think the purely creative phase passes too quickly with them, and you end up married and with lots of little baby paragraphs to tend – with the hope they’ll grow up into fine, upstanding adult paragraphs. My first novel started as a short story, and I was not able to relax into the creativity when I realized I was writing a novel. The first four months of this year, though, I finally understood the freedom in giving myself over completely to a story I didn’t know well, but who I trusted enough to show me new things. It was amazing. Now, we’re married. It’s a little rocky; as Mari points out, it takes real work to survive past the first blush. I believe in us, though.
Congratulations, Kim! I’m going to tweet the link to your AWARD-WINNING!!! anthology.
Hi my friend 🙂
First drafts are such heady places to be….both literally and figuratively. You feel intoxicated on the first flush of creativity as you fall deeply in love with your characters. I love how you have described it too 🙂
Writing – truly the best job one can have in the world.
Thanks hun – for both your friendship and your unwavering support 🙂
Congratulations on the anthology!
Despite my perfectionism, I have great fun with first drafts – they are the epitome of fun and careless creativity. I force my inner editor to leave the room while I’m writing the first draft. She can only come back in when the last sentence has been written.
I like the comparison of the whole process with a marriage, BTW. For me, writing the first draft is like falling in love. Editing is like being newly-married, and realising that your beloved is a deeply flawed individual, and that you’re going to have to work very hard to keep things together.
Still, that’s all in the future – for the time being, just enjoy the heady thrill of being in love!
Thanks Mari 🙂
Yes…completely first drafts are like the first stages of love…exciting, heady, almost secretive. Thankfully I have learnt to send the inner editor off on vacation so that I can fully immerse myself in the first draft stage. I plan on complete immersion in this “first love” of this story.
Thanks for stopping by. 🙂
Congrats on the anthology. That is great news. And my first drafts and I have a love-hate relationship, mostly because I’m such a perfectionist that I have a hard time just leaving them alone and writing them before I start editing. I have to literally stop myself from editing what I’ve already written because if I don’t, I’ll never finish the first draft. I’ll be forever polishing the first ten pages or something. 🙂
Thanks Annikka 🙂
I wrote the book on being a perfectionist 😉
But nowadays I have learnt to write that first draft without editing…I get into a zone and the inner-editor gets sent on vacation. I used to edit while I wrote the first draft but got nowhere fast because I kept on stopping to edit. Now I just let my imagination have creative control. As a friend of mine says, when I write first drafts it is all about my Right Brain and when I edit it is about my Left Brain.
First drafts are the beginning of the love affair of your book. By the last edit you hate it. LOL I love to write then edit. I wish so much luck. I am sure it will wonderful. Cheers!
Thanks Kitty 🙂
Yes edits are the marriage licenses of book-love-affairs 😀 So excited to be WRITING for a while now…had my head stuck in the editing hole for a while…
Congrats on the anthology news, good lady! Also, have fun rolling in the, um, metaphorical hay with that new draft. 🙂
Thanks Simon 🙂
Oh I can definitely guarantee fun “rolling in the, um. metaphorical hay” in my illicit affair with the new draft 😉