That felt good

I wrote this morning. I mean I put pen to paper and created new material from scratch. (approx. 1500 words, 90 minute session). New characters, new episodes. This was following through on my inclination to work on a new short project during my hiatus while I wait for my friend to read the novel. It's been a long time since I wrote in this sense, and it was a lot of fun. The rewrite process has been drudgery compared to it. This felt like the old days when I was drafting the novel. If only all of the process could be like that.

Now, what I'm hoping and testing out in this small experiment is to see if more of the process can be weighted to the drafting stage. I have a theory that what I've learned while working on this novel will make me a better writer in ways that mean I make fewer mistakes during the drafting and need to spend less time on the rewriting. For example, I hope that I'll have a better understanding of structure and flow before I start a project and not do so much experimenting on paper to find my plot line.

So far--I don't know. After a morning of prep notes and a morning of drafting, I don't think I have a sense that I've grown in that way. But I'm determined when it comes time to start my second novel to have a much more developed outline and a much clearer sense of character so that what I lay down in the first draft doesn't need so much more development in the rewrites.