How I draft a book

Planning vs pantsing

Recently I’ve been reflecting on how I draft a book as I’m currently working on another rewrite of Song of the Summer.

When I say rewrite, I mean I’ve got a copy of the previous draft sitting on my desk beside me and I’m retyping out every single word into a fresh Word document. Rewrites can be pretty terrifying as it feels like I’m going back to a blank page but I’ve been trying to remind myself that I’m very much not back at the beginning.

As I chronicled in The seven drafts of Song of the Summer, I’ve been writing and rewriting this book over and over again. In March, I decided to head back in for round eight to incorporate some publisher feedback.

These are the major drafts I’ve done so far:

• Draft 0 (2015) - getting to 18,000 words then giving up

• Draft 1 (2017) - first full draft! Woohoo!

• Draft 4 (2020) - rewrite through Kill Your Darlings Editorial Mentorship program

• Draft 6 (2022-23) - rewrite partially through Bundanon residency and my own determination

So since I had a first draft, this is the third time I’m going back to the blank page and typing every word out all over again.

Obviously, this can’t be the best way to write a book. It’s woefully inefficient. It’s going to be a decade minimum by the time Song of the Summer comes out (if it comes out at all).

So over the last couple of years, I’ve been paying specific attention to how I write my drafts and trying to figure out what I could do to hopefully speed up the process for the next one. Maybe it’ll take me five years instead of ten!