Drawing and drawing and drawing on the board…

Posted on March 30, 2026

Hello, Write Edge readers! On Friday, I posted the following on Instagram:

In case you’re not sure what this is, I’ve restarted the same story six times since the beginning of the year. These are all the Word docs I’ve stored the various versions in.

Who said writing is all muses and inspiration? 😀

Contrary to what some might believe, this actually isn’t frustrating for me. It just means I’m writing a little more slowly than I anticipated. It also means it’s taken this many drafts for me to find just what the story is about.

You might wonder why I’m saving different drafts rather than deleting and starting over. Believe me, there’s been plenty of that too! But I like to keep previous versions because sometimes there are lines or scenes in an earlier one that can be used in a later version, which is what I did when I sat down to write today (on #6.) I scoured the previous draft for a sentence or two I knew would fit and copied and pasted it into the latest version of the story.

The good news is that I’m much closer to what I think the story is. Now it’s a matter of putting words on the page, and to help speed up that process I think I’ll bump up my daily word count. Up until now I committed to 500 words a day, 5 days a week. In order to make even more progress on the story, I’m going to have to go up to 1000 words a day.

I don’t know how doable that is for the foreseeable future with everything else I’m committed to doing, but, as the British say, “needs must.” Today I wrote 1045 words, and it felt great. I know I need to keep working at that pace if I’m going to make serious headway with this new book.

Speaking of other commitments, find out tomorrow on Instagram what I #amreading in this week’s #bookreviewpreview. Then come back on Wednesday for the full review on The Write Edge Bookshelf. I’ll also go back to Instagram on Friday for bits and pieces of the rest of my week. I was able to post this past Friday for the first Friday in a long time, and I have to say it felt good!

Thank you, as always, for your support and kindness, readers! I can’t do this without you. Have a great week!

E.R.G.