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Writer's pictureLucy Bailey

How I threw the goals out of the window and finished my first draft

I swear I had a part of this article pre-written because I knew my mind would be scattered after finishing the first draft but I cannot find it. Oh, well. Let's dive in anyway.

Photo by Damla Özkan on Unsplash


When I started writing the first draft of my debut novel Lessons in Power Play I had no clue what was going to come out of it. I've written lots of stories which I published online before, I even tried and failed to start writing a completely outlined novel (which I'm hoping to finish eventually), but this time it felt different. First of all – I had no plan. Absolutely none. Out of nowhere, the inspiration kicked and back in late January I started writing. And a few days ago, after 8 months and countless late-night sessions, I finished writing at 143 878 words. Which is roughly 500 pages – I recently learned that people who didn't grow up reading fanfiction are not too familiar with word count, so just FYI. For comparison, the longest story I wrote up until now was 100k words long.


If you're still reading this, you probably wonder what sparked this sudden inspiration. Well, Lessons in Power Play is a contemporary political drama with thriller aspects set in a fictional country in the EU, and politicians and journalists inspired it. I won't name any names, but I was watching a political debate on TV and one of the guests seemed incredibly off. I remember thinking – he'd rather be anywhere else but there, and why does it look like he's trying to sabotage himself?! And that's how my main character Dewi Morgan who is forced to run for president by his power-thirsty and prison-fearing lover Edmund Stirling was born. But more about the plot later, in another article which I'll link here so if you're reading this, I haven't written it yet. Here I want to talk about my writing journey and finding an incredible community of writers along the way.


My writing process could only be described as pure chaos. Usually, I just write a bunch of random scenes and see what happens. But after a month, when I was about 15k words in, I realised that it was going somewhere and that this could actually be my debut novel. For one, I dropped all my other WIPs the day I started writing and focused solely on this. That never happened before. So I tried planning because I realised that if it's supposed to be an actual novel, I cannot just hope to swing it. Suddenly I had a list of 43 chapters with a date and a brief description for each. This number later changed to 46 and then back to 42. None of them was finished at the time, of course, because again – chaos. More on why embracing chaos is great later!


And because my brain thrives on frequent rewards, I designed a colour-in word count chart, a chapter spreadsheet to track progress, a list of chapters for outlining, put together a mooadboard with pictures and a chapter list... all of which were incredibly motivating. More about my helping tools in another article, and again, if you're reading this, I haven't written it yet. You can subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page and get sent to your mail when it's ready! 💌


Anyway, by June I had 50k words. And while the motivation was there, I was following my outline quite steadily and going out or having a dedicated spot to write helped me focus, not being able to talk about writing to anyone every day sucked. In late April I started posting on my TikTok, but that was a rather one-sided conversation. But that's how I found the best community on the internet – Page One.


Now, I'm not a person who easily makes friends or starts talking to new people. So when I made a Discord account and joined, which on its own was a big step for me, I expected to just be a watcher, as usual. But this time it was the exact opposite. More about the importance of a community, you guessed it, in an article I haven't written yet. But after joining Page One I met the most amazing people and my productivity skyrocketed. 🚀


I mentioned goals in the headline. I have been a reader since before I can remember. I had my own library card since I was 3 and my mum took me there every Saturday for many years. I've also been a writer since the age of 12. So I thought I could do the math and plan every detail. You know, roughly 350 pages as a standard mid-length novel, 120k words maximum, chapters about 3,5k words long... and I wanted to finish writing by my birthday in September so I'd have a nice 3-month break before I'd start editing at the beginning of my 2 weeks off over Christmas (my workplace closes for the holidays).


And I met NONE of these goals. And you know what? That's fine. It's great, actually. Because I finished anyway and I'm happier with the results than I ever expected and than I ever would be if I rigidly followed the rules and charts, mine or those from textbooks or TikTok experts. Goals gave me a railing that I could touch now and then to steady myself as I walked up the word count steps. Like when you run down the escalator to catch the train, which I do almost daily. But there's no need to hold on to it the whole time. And if you miss the train, well, there's always another one. And here's a cute picture of my cat in my TBR trolley.


So now that I've finished, I ordered a printed coil-bound version on Lulu (can't recommend enough) for a good old-fashioned pen and highlighter editing. But I won't touch it until Christmas – I'll go back to writing fanfiction for a while and hopefully finally pick up a book which I severely neglected while I was writing.


And of course I couldn't resist making a mockup of my book for some more motivation. It's pretty crappy but hey, best thing I have so far. And something to look forward to. Because one day, soon enough, I'll be holding a real copy in my hands. And with a much better cover.


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