The first draft can seem like the artists interpretation of Sisyphus’s task. Illusive and impossible. This is partly because writing is hard. But it is also because it can turn out so painfully bad that it’s embarrassing to write it.
You might question why you imagined that you could write. You might re-read the first chapter and consider putting the keyboard away forever. Don’t do that. You can get past the cringe factor of your first draft.
That’s because *drum roll*, everyone’s first draft is really bad. To quote Neil Gaiman:
The process of doing your second draft is the process of making it look like you knew what you were doing all along.
This implies that like every other writer on the planet, Neil’s first drafts are horrible. And that is OK.
The reason first drafts are so bad is because they are poorly developed. Like the cake before it’s gone into the oven. Sometimes the cake batter will promise perfection. More often, it offers a sense of foreboding worthy of its own epic fail YouTube channel. But you don’t serve the cake batter to your guests. You serve the cake that is baked, cooled, frosted and decorated with all the imperfections long gone.
The first draft is why writing is rewriting.