I handwrote the first draft of my novel

Yes, you read that right: handwrote. Pen to paper.
And now I am transcribing it digitally so it can, y’know, actually be distributed.

I know that handwriting your book probably sounds absolutely bonkers - but there’s a very good reason why I did this…

You see, I have this problem where I self-edit. A lot. Like a lot a lot. It’s kind of a meme in my discord server at this point. It’s so bad that one time I ended up with -3 words during a writing sprint while I was working on draft one because I just. Could. Not. Stop. Self-editing.

It’s a real problem.

So after 8 months of this and hardly making any progress because my editing brain would not shut off, I decided to take extreme measures.

I started handwriting my draft. In pen.

Doing this meant that I could not go back or self-edit. I could only move forward. Suddenly, it was impossible for me to play around with sentence structure or prose. It forced me to put words to the page - and in the end, that’s all that really matters for the first draft.

Words to the page.

And after 8 months of trying to finish my draft digitally and getting nowhere, I finally finished my draft in 4 months by handwriting it (including taking a month-and-a-half-long writer block induced break)!

This method propelled me through the story and allowed me to see the whole scope of my tale by finishing it from start to finish. It also actually helped generate new ideas and new characters because I could finally get out of my own way. Whenever I had a new idea for something previously, I simply slapped a sticky note on the page and moved on.

Now, as I am transcribing my first draft to digital, I am finding the process so much easier and have so much more confidence in my story. Because I know where I’m going and am not continually playing around with prose instead of crafting the story. An added bonus is that as I transcribe, I can complete my first round of self edits at the same time! I am able to catch plot inconsistencies and actually play with my craft and improve my writing. All of this without having to fiddle with words and feeling guilty about deleting or rearranging things.

Because guess what? I have to type it all anyways.

So I might as well play around with the process while I’m at it!

Someone told me once the hardest part of writing your first book is figuring out how you write a book. And I find that to be so true. I have not heard of any recent authors who have handwritten their first drafts so I didn’t even think of it initially as I searched and scoured the internet for help with my process. But once I had the idea, I realized how right it was for me.

Despite how crazy it may seem, this method really worked for me and I’m going to continue handwriting drafts until my brain and perfection issues tell me otherwise.