There’s a writing community I’m part of that has a rule.
Rule #1. Finish The Freaking Draft.
(Respect to Hobo Dan who came up with this rule.)
To be honest, the word used there isn’t “Freaking”… I’m sure you get the gist.
It sounds obvious. Simple. Even a little bossy. But it’s the single most important thing most writers need to hear.
Why This Rule Matters
A first draft is likely messy by nature. Its purpose is to Tell The Story, however badly it falls out of you. You can’t fix what you haven’t written.
Too many writers get stuck polishing the first chapter for six months. They tweak a scene, rewrite the dialogue, move a comma, then go back and do it all again. It feels productive… but it’s not.
That’s not writing a book. That’s writing the beginning of a book over and over until you’re sick of it.
Even worse? World building. That’s a rabbit-hole I’ve fallen into in the past, and I now know how to avoid.
Editing is Safe. Drafting is Risky.
Let’s be honest — editing can feel easier than writing new material. You’re working with something that already exists. You’re not staring into the blank-page void wondering if you have anything worth saying.
But safety is where momentum goes to die. The longer you stay in fix-mode, the harder it is to push forward.
Drafting means uncertainty. It means writing scenes that might not work. It means letting your characters wander and make mistakes. But that’s the only way you discover the story’s shape.
You Can’t Edit a Blank Page
Your first draft is a block of raw material. It might be ugly. It might be embarrassing. It might make you wince to read it back.
That’s fine.
You’re not carving a statue yet. You’re digging the clay out of the ground.
How to Actually Finish
- Ban Editing While Drafting. Make a deal with yourself: no changes until “The End.”
- Leave Yourself Breadcrumbs. If you notice a problem, drop a note in the margin and keep going. (I wrote about this, here.)
- Write Out of Order if You Need To. Stuck on chapter four? Jump to the big fight scene in chapter twenty.
- Set a Deadline. Open-ended drafts tend to stay open-ended.
- Accept Imperfection. First drafts are meant to be bad. Your only job is to get it done. Tell the story.
The Payoff
Once the draft exists, you can make it better. You can fix pacing, deepen characters, cut what doesn’t work. But until then, you’re working with air.
So, Rule #1. Finish The Freaking Draft.
You can’t publish a perfect chapter.
You can revise an imperfect book into something great.
So. When you gonna finish that draft, huh?