Under Paintings

I don't know how, but I've managed to survive to another Insecure Writer's Blog Post! It was a narrow thing on my part, I assure you. So if you haven't heard of the Insecure Writers support Group, head on over to the Ninja Captain, hop on the Linky and say "Howdy" to this month's cohosts Yolanda Renee, Tyrean Martinson, Madeline Mora-Summonte , LK Hill, Rachna Chhabria, and JA Scott! .

This month, I'm insecure about not having masterpieces fall from my finger tips. I know, I know, I need to give myself some credit because just the writing of a first draft is both hard and important. It's actually been slowing me down as I write, this need to have everything perfect as it hit's the page, but then I remember: this is a first draft.

Say it with me folks: First Drafts have permission to suck.

You know what doesn't have permission to suck? The final draft.

But I keep getting the two confused in my head, so I'm trying to remind myself that my first drafts are like under paintings. Sometimes, in painting, you sort of sketch out the form of what you're going to paint in muted colors. It's to give you a road map for when you're really slinging the paint around.

Here's one of my recent paintings with it's underpainting.

This is me not being finished

And this is me being finished.

So yeah, I need to pull back a little bit and judge my first draft by the standards of a first draft.