Two weeks ago, we posted this:

The YA Muses strive to make our weekly blog topics as interesting and helpful as possible. See, the best part of the blog is you. Every comment and new follower inspires us.

With that in mind, we're opening up the switchboard to ask:

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE US COVER ON THE BLOG?

Do you have any specific questions you'd like us to address? Any particular topics?

If so, don't be shy - please leave a comment! We'll gather everything we receive and dedicate a week to reader questions.

We're repeating it now because we'll be answering (or attempting to answer) your questions and responding to comments during the week of March 14th.  So please, keep asking!  We look forward to the conversation.

2011 Debut author and loyal Muse follower (and guest post-extraordinaire), Stasia Ward Kehoe, revealted her gorgeous cover this week.

 On October 13, AUDITION (Viking/Penguin) will hit the shelves.  It's a novel written in verse that tells the story of 17-year-old Sara, whose dream of becoming a ballerina is threatened when she falls in love with an older choreographer.  And she becomes his muse.  (We love it already).

Today, Stasia launches her new blog, A Year of Auditions.  This site will host writers, performers and writer-performers as they recount their audition experiences.  I predict it will be funny, heartbreaking, inspiring and eye-opening.  Visit and learn more about your favorite (and soon-to-be-favorite) authors.

Stasia's other blog, Writer on the Side, relates her daily writing experiences as she navigates this crazy world we all love.

You can also visit Stasia's website and follow her on Twitter.

She is the Nemesis of the keyboard.  The one who makes me a card-carrying member of the First-Draft Haters Club (when I used to be a revision hater).  Call her the Inner Editor.  The Inner Critic.  She needs to be silenced.  Turn down the volume.  Apply duct tape.  And listen to me.

I give you permission to write a terrible first draft.  Unbearable.  Abominable.  Nauseating. 

But here is the caveat:  You have to write it.  You have to write it.  The first draft.  The rough draft.  That original, vomitous outpouring of words.  And you have to write the entire thing.

I’m not saying you have to write it terribly.  Do your best, obviously.  But don’t belabor it.  Don’t agonize over the sentence that doesn’t sit right.  The word that doesn’t come right away.  The character who is wooden. The plot full of holes and loose threads.  You can agonize over all of that later.  During revisions. 

What I’m saying is this:  Don’t let the seemingly execrable quality of the draft paralyze you.  Write it anyway.  The good, the bad and the truly hideous.  Write the plot that you think is going somewhere but reads like it’s going nowhere.  Write the prose that your pet ferret could write better.  Write the dialogue that reads like a B-grade Japanese monster flick.  Badly dubbed.  You can fix it.  Later.

Because that is one of the truly wonderful things about writing.  In so much of life, if you make a chain of terrible errors, you could end up with a major cluster on your hands.  But when you’re writing fiction?  You can fix it.  And you will. 

That character you killed off in chapter two but needs to be in chapter seven?  Resurrect him!  (In the next draft).  The setting that sounds like the two-tone color printing of a Dick and Jane book?  Enrich it.  (In revision). The character arc that’s more of a character slump?  Bring out the flying buttresses.  (Later).

As you write your first draft, remember your revision tools.  But not in order to apply them.  The inner editor has to be turned off in round one.  Remember your tools only to remind yourself that you have them.  That you’ve used them before.  That they will be available when you need them. 

Why am I telling you this?  Why am I reminding you of all the cringe-worthy possibilities a first draft presents?  Because I have committed every single one of these crimes in the past few weeks.  And every day I need to tell myself (or sometimes have someone else tell me) that I’ve been here before.  That the book I sold last year was once a heaping pile, too.  But with time and effort, with revision and continuing creativity, I was able to find the jewels hidden in the muck.  

They are there.  Those jewels.  You know they are.  The one-line zinger your protagonist came out with yesterday.  The delicious description of the love-interest that popped onto the page two weeks ago.  The true kernel of character arc that seeded itself in the first five pages and will continue to carry you through.  Whether you’re an outliner or a pantser.  The seed is there.  It’s why you’re writing.

So follow Donna’s chain.  Draw the skull and crossbones on the calendar like V.  (But please, don’t forget the smiley-faces, because seeing them is more help to you than my permission).  Just turn off the inner critic.  Silence it.  And get on with the writing.  As Talia says, “Don’t be afraid to suck.”

Just send me a message reminding me of this in a couple of weeks.  I’ll probably need it again by then.

There's a reason they call it a rough draft.  The first draft is definitely rough.  I'm not just talking about the words on the page, but the blood and guts that spill as it's written.

I'm going to make a confession.  Most of the time, I hate writing first drafts.





Sometimes I wonder why I'm even a writer because the process of getting a rough draft on paper is so terrifying and painful.

But then I have a moment.

The moment might be big or small, but it's always a surprise.  It's the moment when a character reveals a secret that takes the story to wonderful places I never imagined, or utters a line that makes me laugh out loud.  It's the day when I write five thousand words without breaking for lunch, when the story unfolds as if someone else is writing it.

Athletes call this the zone; a heightened state of consciousness where your body performs at peak levels almost automatically, reacting before you can think to make it.  The writing zone is that space where your subconscious takes over and your characters start to say and do things seemingly on their own.  These moments happen whether you're a plotter or pantser.  And they are amazing.

I wish I had a checklist for this, a step by step process that would lead us all to those wonderful moments of discovery in the writing zone.  I don't.  And maybe that's why rough drafts are so hard for me.

The only way to get the novel written is to write it.  I wish there were another, easier, less scary way.  There's not. 

So I write.  And then I write some more.

Some thoughts on how to get through the first draft:

1.  Don't be afraid to suck.  There will be plenty of time for revision and rewrites later.  The important thing is to get words on paper.

2.  Don't be afraid to write scenes out of order.  Yes, it means more work in revision, but sometimes you need to write the climax before you can understand what happens in the scene just before it.

3.  Don't wait for inspiration.  Some days words flow like water, some days its more like pulling teeth.  Yank away.  If you always wait for inspiration, your novel will never get written. 

4.  Reward yourself along the way.  Writing a novel is a marathon.  It takes stamina and endurance to get to the end.  Keep yourself motivated by setting goals along the way and rewarding yourself when you hit them. Treat yourself to a latte when you finish a chapter. Take a weekend off when you hit the halfway mark. Buy a new outfit when you hit the end.

5.  It's okay to be afraid.  Just WRITE.

Setting a daily or weekly goal is a great way to get a rough draft written. Many writers commit to chunk of writing time every day, or a target word count. They're the equivalent of taking a step on the path to completion. Keep taking those steps and the end draws nearer with each one. One becomes ten, becomes a thousand and before you know it, you've covered a great distance. You've drafted a novel.

Many writers also have an end goal--a total word count, or a completion date that they aim for--when writing a rough draft. I set both of these, but more important to me than looking forward is the ability to look back.

Allow me to explain. Every manuscript I write gets its own wall calendar. On the calendar (Eckhart Tolle for my current work in progress), I block out time to plan, and then I note the day I start writing. I aim for at least a thousand words a day. Every day, I write my word count on the calendar. Most days, I meet my goal. Some days I fail miserably. And others still, I double it.

I add up my weekly totals on the calendar, and jot down dates where I reach (or discover) pivotal milestones in the story. I draw stars and smiley faces on good days. I draw skull and crossbones on bad ones. For great days, I bust out the highlighter.

Can you picture what this calendar looks like?

It's a record of all the peaks and valleys in the process. A visual representation of all the steps I spoke of above. And here's why I love this: because it's important to remember that every day is not the same. Some days are terrible. Stumbling. Painful. But there are smiley days. Days where I hit three thousand words without breaking a sweat. And for me, seeing those ups and downs takes some pressure off. When I sit down in the morning to write, seeing the journey as an overview makes me feel better. It calms me to see the chaos. The craziness. Because maybe I had a poor stretch last week, but I was on fire the week before that. And look at yesterday....

Then I push my calendar aside and top off my coffee. And then it's time to see what happens today.

This week on the blog, we're exploring the topic of rough drafts.

"The first draft is definitely the hardest,” says author, Joyce Carol Oates, “like hacking one's way through a thick jungle with something like a butter knife.” Because of that daunting challenge, when writers get together, the conversation often turns to how to encourage, support, inspire and accomplish the rough draft. That's exactly what happened when I was in San Diego this weekend and had dinner with my brother-in-law, and fellow writer, Jason.

Jason's New Year's Resolution was oh too familiar. Write something, anything, every single day. (In fact I think I may have written that very resolution on this very blog a couple of months ago). We've both tried calendars and various goal documentation, but Jason had found a new twist (based on Jerry Seinfield's idea) that I thought I'd share. It's simple, but motivating.

The idea is to start on any day (like today) and to mark off each box every day you write, trying to see how far you can go without "breaking the chain." It doesn't matter how long, or how much you write each day, just that you put your butt in the chair and do it. Here's Jason's suggestions on how to use the chart:

Attached is the sheet I was talking about. One tip, I printed it out on photo paper (or you could use heavy construction paper) instead of regular paper, that way I can use a permanent ink or heavy marker to cross boxes out and the ink wont soak through. I cross off a box diagonally and write the date on either side of the line similar to a date style like 2/26 for today as an example, that way I don't lose the day that I am on. I found that even though I write, I may forget to cross off the box. Writing the date in each box helps keep track. Enjoy and keep writing.

I'd love the idea of competing with myself to see how many days I can write without 'breaking the chain." I firmly believe writing anything will eventually leads to writing something, so encouraging the constant production of new material is wonderful. If you use this idea, let us know. If you want a PDF of the chart, just comment below and I'll send you one. I'd love to hear how far you can go without "breaking the chain."

I'm starting my chain of rough draft writing today and reminding myself constantly "Amateurs wait for inspiration. The rest of us just go to work every day."- Paul Theroux