Firstly, welcome to my Substack! Off the Page with Libby Page is a newsletter for anyone who wants a regular dose of joy and honesty. It’s essentially my space to share what’s on my mind and your way of reading my writing in between books. If you’d like to keep up to date and are not already subscribed, you can sign up using the button below!
Today’s article is the first in my ‘the joy of…’ series, where I will write about some of life’s joys, big and small.
Thanks for being here, and I hope you enjoy.
The Joy of… the First Draft
I have always thought that the blank page gets a bad rep. Getting started is supposedly the hardest bit but I have written four novels and my absolute favourite part of the book-writing process is the first draft. The crisp new notebook (bought specially, of course), the blank computer screen… Not all writers agree with me – I have met plenty who detest the first-draft stage – but for me it’s where all the fun is at.
Right now, I’m about a third of the way into the first draft of my next novel (the first novel that I have written from scratch since having my son). It feels like the honeymoon-period of writing. I have a grasp of the characters and the story but am still not entirely sure where it’s going.
When I’m writing a first draft, sitting at my computer every day feels like an adventure.
Armed with my cup of tea, some biscuits and that blank page I could go anywhere, do anything. Or at least my characters could and isn’t that basically the same thing when you’re a writer?
The journey from idea to an actual book in your hands is a long and arduous one, often involving months and months of back and forth with your editor, endless versions of your manuscript saved hopefully as Book 3.final.final.REALLY_FINAL. Your work will be pulled apart and you will have approximately five hundred meltdowns where you think maybe you should just delete the whole thing and never write again. But somehow when I sit down to write a first draft I manage to forget about all that is to come or at least block it out for enough time to get 90,000 words out of my head.
Ideas are perfect things.
They exist in our minds like a holiday destination viewed on some influencer’s perfectly-curated Instagram feed. The act of writing that idea down is like actually getting on the plane. Maybe we’ll have to face up eventually to the fact that the place we pictured isn’t exactly how we imagined. There might be mould in the hotel room or a power plant on the horizon. But as we sit on the plane, just for a while we can imagine we’re heading towards perfection.
I always think that editing uses a completely different part of my brain to writing a first draft. When you edit you have to think about problems with the plot or development of the characters and solving those weak points in the book can feel like trying to complete a Rubix cube or build something complicated using only toilet paper and string. It’s analytical, logical, mathematical, problem-solving. Going over endless potential options and what impact your changes might have on the rest of the story. If I do x, I’ll have to change y…
First drafts, on the other hand, feel like play, like the closest I can get to that feeling of making up stories as a child and acting them out with the help of the dressing-up-box.
At its most basic, writing a first draft is getting to make stuff up, to create something new that wasn’t there before.
It’s everything I have always loved about writing, back before it got tangled up with the messy business of trying to make a living out of this.
I think if you want to have any chance of making a career out of writing, you have to love, I mean really love, the act of writing. Otherwise you’d frankly choose an easier industry to crack. And I think you also have to stay hopeful. You will always face criticism or changing trends or a million other things that tell you to give up and not even bother. But to be a writer is to keep writing anyway.
Writing a first draft is an ultimate act of hope.
Maybe I’ll manage to get across exactly what I wanted to convey. Perhaps this will be the book that sells millions and gets turned into a blockbuster movie. Or maybe I’ll just have done something I feel proud of. Maybe I can. Perhaps…
I think the moment I stop feeling excited about a first draft will be the moment I put my pen down for good (or turn off my bright yellow MacBook for the last time). I hope that day never comes. First drafts are like sunny mornings: however many dark, rainy days I might live through, I always feel excited about waking up to the chance of just one more new day, one more chance to get it right.
And a few things I’m loving…
I’ve just finished reading Jenny Colgan’s latest novel set on the Scottish island Mure. An Island Wedding is fun, funny but also incredibly moving. And who doesn’t love a good wedding? It’s also probably no surprise that I LOVE a book set on an island - my latest novel is called The Island Home, after all.
If you’re after a total ray of sunshine of a book, All About Evie, the hilarious sequel to The Miseducation of Evie Epworth, is out now and is wonderful.
We’ve just had a heatwave here in the UK so although knitwear might have started appearing in shops (why?!) I am still very much longing for breezy summer dresses. I just love this seed packet print dress from Oasis. And for cool and comfy pjs to waft about in, doesn’t this candy-stripe cotton pair look dreamy?
Thank you for your nicely composed text. I also think it is special to have the first draft in my hands. Like a visualized idea. The quotes in-between this post are inspiring. Creative writing is an adventure. Can't wait to read Island Home in my next holiday.
So thrilled to find you here on substack! I can’t wait for your next newsletter!