the year of the eternal first draft

For someone who loves a good first draft more than anything else, I've discovered something dangerous.

As I am right now, with how my creative output works right now (because I am in a goddam boon, man, all I've been doing is creating and the well ain't running dry yet), I've discovered that I can write a first draft constantly and still have enough words left over for any rewrite I might want to do. This happened gradually, this realization; it happened because I kept wanting to write first drafts, but I also was trying to rewrite a different project and decided, what the hell.

I've written... four first drafts this year? I'm currently working on number five. I'm only five hundred or so words in (I finished First Draft Number Four last night and immediately jumped in on No. 5, but then I got a page in and decided it was time to watch Curse of the Puppet Master). I've previously avoided doing more than one thing at a time, writing-wise, because I was under the false impression that it would stretch me too thing.

Turns out there's no such thing.

Two first drafts at once is, admittedly, too much. I have discovered that. I can stick to one at a time, no problem. 

But my rewrite I'm also currently working on? It's going fine. The quality of the prose post-this-realization is the same as the quality pre-this-realization. Now, this is something that, once it goes through a couple more things (like, maybe me poking a couple CPs to see if they'd be willing to take a look at it, I'm lookin' at you Emma), I'm going to replace my current one I'm querying with it (that is, unless that one lands me an agent, which I would be 100% happy with and also that means we drop everything for that one). 

But hey--with a million first drafts, there's always something to pick from for the next rewrite.