Drafting Techniques Quotes

I am somebody who usually writes out the rough draft in longhand. Then I type it into the computer, and that is where I do my editing. I find that if I write it on the computer, I go too quick. So I like getting that first draft out and then typing it in; you are less self-conscious about it.

About 1998, when 'Wide World of Sports' and the 'Footy Show' came to an end for me, I couldn't type. When I started architecture, it was a very aesthetic, creative, an almost art process, where lettering and thick line were how you expressed yourself on the paper.

I'm very interested in architecture.

I come from a long line of architects. I'm the only one who did not become an architect, but I've been around the drawing aspect and construction my whole life.

First draft: let it run. Turn all the knobs up to 11. Second draft: hell. Cut it down and cut it into shape. Third draft: comb its nose and blow its hair. I usually find that most of the book will have handed itself to me on that first draft.

I don't card out my screenplays ever. I just have an idea I just sit down and write I don't edit. Sometimes the first draft will come out at 200 pages. I think and think and I go, "um this story is about the brother that appears on page 178." I go back and I rewrite.

I'm a great reviser. I do these reckless drafts just to get the lay of the land.

Some writers find that they don't know their themes until they've finished the first draft (I am one). They then rewrite with an eye toward balancing on that tightrope: not too contrived, not too rambling; does what I'm saying about the world below me actually add up to anything? Other writers pay attention to these things as they write the first draft. Either way, an awareness of the macro and micro levels of theme can provide one more tool for thinking about what you should write, and how.

I am immersed in architecture all day, working in my office or teaching.

The frightening thought that what you draw may become a building makes for reasoned lines.

The first draft is the child's draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later.

I see myself as a first-draft writer, so when I sit down to write something, the first draft is usually pretty close to the end draft. There will be some tweaks along the way, but it's not like I'll go 20 pages and throw it out and start again.

I draft quickly and then revise, a lot.

I number my drafts, and by the time a book is done, I'll have 75 or 80 drafts of some sections.

I'm a draftsperson. And also, I really respond to love.

For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts.