Write Like a Duck

The case for reading other people's early drafts, or how a nutty meal made me rethink writing

Hi friends,

I’ve been thinking about something that happened in one of my writers’ circles. After a member shared a really excellent early draft, her cohort member said “wow, it’s amazing to see work in this stage because you can feel all of the excitement of how good it’s going to be when it gets published.” I appreciated that comment because it encapsulates so much of what I love about editing—I don’t edit because I’m some kind of control freak, but because I find the process of helping a manuscript figure out what it’s trying to become genuinely exhilarating—and I love seeing how it gets there. In many ways, only reading final drafts puts the average reader at a disadvantage (or at very least can be demoralizing). You see your very rough draft, you compare it to a beautiful article or book, and it’s so hard to envision the path between point A and point B. It’s my job to connect those dots. This week I wanted to share a few stories about how to think about that path—why it’s good to look at things that are quirky, unfinished, rough around the edges to see what is actually exciting and good.

Admiring, but not emulating, perfection

Did y’all see the video last week of when Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, the gold medalist Olympic sprinter, participated in the parents race at her kid’s school? She not only outruns the other parents, but outruns the camera, without breaking as sweat. My son was like “wow Mom, you’d still be at the finish line as she was sipping her Gatorade.” Thanks kid.

It reminded me of the Katie Ledecky memes from this summer:

Lucky for us, there is no Olympics to writing. There isn’t an award for fast enough (it takes forever, we know this) or long enough (whatever you’re writing can probably be shorter!). And I’m unwaveringly of the opinion that whatever writing you’re envying right now—whatever article or book that has caught your eye or changed the way you thought—you can write that well too.

Learning lessons when things go askew

Last week, my husband and I accomplished a stunning feat: we went out to dinner without our children. This happens so rarely these days that just about anything—scheduling overlapping dental appointments, for example—counts as a date, so getting to eat dinner together felt like an amazing accomplishment. And to be clear, it was lovely. Everyone we interacted with was extremely nice, the food was outstanding, and we had a great time. And t no one interrupted me, called me “bruh,” or said “skibidi” the whole time, so really there is NOTHING here that should be read as a complaint.

But a series of strange things happened: they sat us and then forgot about us for like…17 minutes, with plenty of waiters in sight, but none that were assigned to us. It was a tapas restaurant, and they brought out all of the food at once instead of pacing it, so there were wobbly stacks of plates everywhere on our little table. Soup was brought out that we had to mix ourselves, but we weren’t given instructions how. They gave us five spoons but only one fork. The table next to us ordered red wine and they put it in an ice bucket, we ordered white wine and they left it on the table. They refilled my water repeatedly, but never my husband’s.

Not our plate of cheese, but this one looks good too. Photo by Farhad Ibrahimzade on Unsplash

And in the midst of all of this, they served us escalivada, which happened to be the best cabbage anyone has ever eaten. When I tell you our jaws simultaneously dropped because we were fighting over the same last bite of roasted cabbage…it was outstanding. But then the meal ended with a mysterious plate of Basque cheese (yes please, all of the cheese) but no clues as to what the cheeses were.

After the meal—which lasted a swift 56 minutes—my husband joked that it was like having dinner with very nice people who had never been inside of a restaurant before.

Why am I telling you this? Because I think a lot of writing projects start out this way. There’s a cool story that you start in section 1 and you forget to conclude it in section 2 (like the ice bucket). There is great data (the cheese plate) but you don’t interpret it for people, so they don’t know why it’s significant. You want to make sure that people know you’re the expert, so you say everything you know very quickly all at once, instead of believing that the reader will trust a slower cadence (all six courses appearing at once, and us being out of the restaurant in under an hour).

AND—I cannot emphasis this enough—shoved somewhere in the middle of the project is a genius gem of an idea that needs to see the light of day, but are perhaps, for now, being overlooked, but just need their proper places to shine (the outstanding cabbage).

And so?

As you go into the summer, I want you to remember this: no one expects you to be flawless. You might not be the Katie Ledecky of anthropology or the Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce of evolutionary biology. But this is why after the writing comes the re-writing. Because all of the raw materials of a perfect restaurant meal were there: Good company. Good wine. Delicious food. The rest is funny, but fixable—a little bit of pacing, a little bit of framing, a little bit of a vision, and you’re on your way to greatness.

And whenever you need another set of eyes—or to remind you that red wine is better at room temperature, white wine likes a little chill—I’m here!

xoxo,

Kelly

What’s Going on Around Here

Hey! Need a community? I have so many options for you!

So You Want to Write A Book?: Two spots left! A unique hybrid workshop dedicated to supporting writers throughout their book writing journey. Come join us in May! More info here, Register here

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A (very rare) summer Writers’ Circle. I almost always just host two writers’ circles a year—in the spring and the fall, but my sense is that people are in need of some community this year, so I’m going to host a very rare summer workshop in May and June. AND, by popular demand, there will be space for writing built into our meetings: so we’ll talk about writing, and then actually do it. Details here, register here.

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