In prepping for those one of the things I keep coming back to:

A lot of writing takes too long because we are asking the FIRST DRAFT to do like SEVEN DRAFTS worth of work.

Quick question: What exactly are you calling a first draft? because I suspect some of you are using “first draft” to mean something like:

“The first version I could show another human without wanting to flee the country...” (which is a wildly expensive definition.)

One of the biggest problems with an overwritten first draft is that you don’t allow yourself the dopamine hit of DONE.

And DONE matters A LOT.

“DONE” lets you have a victory, and gives you that little hit of pride and satisfaction that says, Okay. I made a thing.

And then, ideally, CURIOSITY shows up being all... you know... curious about stuff.

What if I changed this? What if that section moved over here? What if the ending did something completely different?

That curiosity is what compells you to do draft two. NOT EDIT DRAFT 1.

And the excitement created by draft two is what gets you to draft three... it’s a knee-bone connected to the femur-bone kinda thing (I’m mediocre at biology my apologies...)

My point is somewhere around draft 5 or whatever... maybe you have the thing you thought you might be thinking you’re supposed to produce on draft 1. (Except you GOT THERE instead of wringing every bit of joy out of the process of the thing you love.)

Quick Example:

The show that effectively started my storytelling career, Ain’t True & Uncle False, was as a collection of oral stories... which were all stolen and adapted from a failed novel... I didn’t finish... which had been adapted from some failed prose poems (some of which I’d written in college and are EXTRA-embarrassing in their original format...) and those failed prose poems began, more or less, with me writing this:

“A semi-truck overturned vomiting 100s of toilet paper rolls into the snowy median... my eyes focussing and unfocussing just trying to find where the toilet paper rolls begin and the snow ends...”

To be clear, I’m aware this DOES NOT SEEM to have the makings of a successful show. It wasn’t even, technically, the beginning of a successful novel.

But it WAS the BEGINNING of SOMETHING... and that was enough to lead me… excitedly… to what I was searching for.

So what’s a First Draft then?

Here’s my definition -
I think a first draft is done when it captures enough of the idea that
A. it is closer to the final version than it was before, and
B. it fuels the next draft with curiosity and excitement.

That’s all, y’all.

That means your first draft does not need elegant sentences, perfect structure or to resolve every problem you discovered while writing it.
(It did its job IF you discovered problems while writing it. Solve one of those problems in DRAFT 2!)

Restating the Definition here:
Draft 1 needs to capture the idea, move the idea forward and make you want to keep going.

That’s… it.

Because if you spend 6 hours trying to make draft 1 look like draft 8 you may end the day with three beautiful paragraphs and the feeling that you have somehow failed… because the story hasn’t even started and you already don’t know what to do next…

but if you spend those same six hours getting the whole weird, lumpy, questionable thing into existence… well… you only spend 46 minutes on DRAFT 1.

And you get to say “Done!”

Then you come back 14 minutes later after a lemonaid or whatever and start DRAFT 2 because you have questions you’ve discovered and problems to solve… and then you get to say “Done AGAIN! WOW!” And now you have 4 more hours of discovery and excitement ahead of you. (I don’t know who you are, person with 6 hours to write… but congratulations!)

And tomorrow... or during your lunch break... you’ll be EXCITED make it even better and better.

These kinds of distinctions are a huge part of what we’re going to be honing in on in WRITE BETTER. FASTER. on September 8 and what we’ll be working with with YOU on YOUR WRITING in the FROM DREAM TO DRAFT TO DONE cohort.

We’re talking about making better creative decisions, understanding what problem you are actually trying to solve, and building an ENJOYABLE writing process that gets you to DONE more often and more efficiently so there’s more time to explore or... I dunno... live happily and drink lemonade.

If writing has been taking you longer or is a great deal more painful than you think it should be this workshop and cohort for you.

And if you’re a paid Substack subscriber, it’s free when you register with the discount code I’ve sent.

ALSO - the cohort is 20% off for Paid Subscribers as well. Same discount code.

Come make something. Then finish it.

THEN make it better.

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As paid tier you get free access to ALL workshops, and 20% off the COHORTS and COACHING.

WORKSHOP (click the image or link below…

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ALSO THIS PAST WEEK I taught a workshop on Tuesday night that was… awesome. Really, really enjoyable. People showed up. People had breakthroughs. I got to do some work I really care about. (And thank you to all of you for coming along on this weird story journey.)

So this is, by almost any reasonable definition, an extremely “successful” week…

And yet, here tonight, I am sitting here exhausted, behind on a bunch of things, mildly irritated by a bunch of administrative nonsense that’s nagging me, staring at a list of approximately 147 tasks (one of which is “WRITE SUBSTACK ARTICLE) and thinking:

This is an ABSOLUTELY DERANGED way to try to experience a “success.”

I think I/we sometimes imagine success as some enormous brass bell that will eventually ring over our lives, like:

DONG! YOU HAVE SUCCEEDED. PLEASE ENJOY YOUR PERMANENT SENSE OF ACCOMPLISHMENT FOREVER.

But man, it is pretty obvious that nothing really works that way.

A show sells out, and then… you have to do another show.

You finish a draft, and then… you notice three things that you want to fix right before you click submit.

You get the gig… and then you have to answer 1,702 emails about where to park.

I think maybe what people are talking about when they’re talking about “success” is something closer to “arrival.”

And I think ARRIVAL IS MOSTLY FICTIONAL… IF YOU’RE TRYING TO KEEP GOING.

Here’s a Sloppy Definition of Success

Most people use success to mean:

“Something went extremely well, preferably in a way a lot of other people can see.”

And that is understandable, but it is truly useless.

Most of the time, people only see the RESULT of 1,000 unseen successes.

Here’s A Better Definition

Success is making one small thing work on purpose that didn’t work before.

I think success is best appreciated small. I often call this “successfuller.”

It’s when you finally get the joke right, or tell a story for the 13th time and suddenly understand exactly why the audience did not understand it the 12th time, or you write the third paragraph and realize, That’s the voice. And then that gives you the OPPORTUNITY to go back and fix the other paragraphs.

These are all VERY REAL successes, even though they seem small.

Most stuff seems small compared to finishing a book or eating 70 hotdogs really fast or whatever your thing is….

I’ll say it again: A public, visible success is the RESULT of 1,000 unseen successes.

What Success Is Made Of

1. Specificity

“I want to become a better writer” is a fine thing to WANT, but unless you’re taking small manageable steps toward that goal it’s not particularly helpful as a “want.”

What are you DOING… to WRITE… BETTER?

“I want the first paragraph to make someone curious enough to read the second paragraph.”

OK! Now THAT is a wonderfully achievable goal.

THAT is the pathway to successfullerness, which is success that’s on the way to more success. (Also I just think misspelling “success” in increasingly weird ways is funny… and yes, I’m VERY tired.)

2. Attention

You have to pay attention to notice when it works.

Small successes are easy to miss because they don’t usually arrive carrying fancy balloons… or any balloons, come to think of it…

You literally have to do the work of noticing them EVEN THOUGH THERE ARE NO BALLOONS!

Step 1 is “That joke works now. I wonder why?”

Step 2 is “Now that I’ve figured out why that joke works, now I’m going to be able to do that kind of joke better all the time!”

SUCCESSFULLER!

That’s the important bit. You didn’t just succeed once. You learned something from the success.

3. Repetition

Succeed in small weird intentional ways for long enough and you accidentally just… acquire skills.

That’s how most people good at anything have ever done literally anything.

Skills are just things you figured out how to do once, then learned what you did well enough to do it again repeatedly.

I have been lucky enough to stumble forward through my career and then be able to look back on it and parse it out in (hopefully) enjoyable ways that are (hopefully) helpful for people.

And here’s what happens: eventually, these skills start producing larger outcomes.

A sold-out show is not 1 giant success.

It is several thousand microscopic successes that are just wearing a name tag that says “SOLD-OUT SHOW.”

Try This

Pick something you’re working on and do not ask:

How do I make this successful?

That question is enormous and foggy and very liable to send you off searching for a snack and a surprisingly entertaining YouTube video about window installation.

Ask:

What is one small thing I can IDENTIFY and try to make work better TODAY?

Make THAT successful.

Then pay attention to WHY it worked.

Then do something like it again.

And when it works again, for goodness’ sake, REMEMBER HOW YOU DID IT SO YOU CAN DO IT SOME MORE!

Here’s A More Memorable, Portable Definition I Hope You Find Useful:

Success is making one small thing work on purpose that didn’t work last time.

Do that often enough and bigger successes have a weird habit of just showing up.

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Speaking of making one small thing work better:

On September 8th, I’m teaching a new live workshop called

WRITE BETTER. FASTER.

It’s about getting more successfuller writing done with less fifth-guessing (which is second-guessing 3 times) or generally wandering through your own brain carrying an unlit lantern.

AND for people who want more than the workshop, I’m also going to open up a very small September cohort:

FROM DREAM TO DRAFT TO DONE

It’s four Tuesdays total - (the workshop and then 3 cohort dates.)

We will use your actual projects, so this will be guided work that actually gets done. There will be accountability, there will be coaching when necessary but most importantly there’ll be a month devoted to actually moving something meaningful forward.

The cohort includes the workshop.

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Ok… I’m going to go attempt the advanced creative practice known as “gratitude” about having sold out an entire Fringe run for at least several consecutive minutes before jumping to another task.

Wish me luck!

(I am incredibly blessed. This has been a really cool few weeks.)

I hope you’re finding it worthwhile. I know I am!

Here’s the link to the SEPTEMBER COHORT (the W…

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Doing the 2nd of these “Dispatches from the Road” style articles… less crafted, more immediate….

Let me know if you like these… I’ll add them to the rotating menu of article-types you’ll be receivi…

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If you want to get the regularly $39 workshop

Stop Avoiding the Work You Want to Make

for $25… that offer ends tonight.

Click the picture below:

and USE THIS DISCOUN…

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This article is gonna be a tad looser format-wise because I’m writing it wh…

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STOP AVOIDING THE WORK YOU WANT TO MAKE

is gonna happen Tuesday, Au…

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Thanks, forever and ever, for being here!

Paul

WORKSHOP:

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To be clear: I am not calling myself charismatic. That was their inaccurate diagnosis.

They ha…

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WHAT A GOOD ONE TODAY!

As paid subscribers, y’all already had free access to STAGE CRAFT. Here’s the replay:

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STAGE CRAFT will focus on performance, delivery, timing, presence, audience connection, etc.

The workshop will also be recorded, and I’ll send …

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I have spent an unreasonable percentage of my adult life standing in crowded lobbies.

Theater lobbies. Conference lobbies. Festival lobbies. Hotel lobbies where everyone is wearing the same lanyard an…

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CLICK THIS LINK TO CHECK OUT PAGE CRAFT + STAGE CRAFT!

NEW SERIES!

I am beginning a NEW SERIES of a…

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A quick note for paid subscribers:

Page Craft + Stage Craft is included with your paid subscription.

This is exactly the kind of thing the paid tier is for.

I’m teaching two live online works…

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I’m SOOO excited to be teaching TWO live online SpeedCoaching workshops this month on how to make your writing clearer on the page and your speaking land better in th…

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Thanks for your continued support!

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In July, I’m offering two small-group speed coaching sessions:

Page Craft for people working on writing, essays, talks, newsletters, or written pieces that need to land…

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“But if I do that, won’t I be talking too much about myself?”

One was working on a part of a speech.

One was w…

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It had four legs. It had a back.

From across the room, it gave a perfectly respectable chair performance, just sitting there.

But the moment I sat down in that chair the whole t…

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