Generating New Work

No-Stakes Drafts

I always have lots of writing ideas rolling around in my head. These ideas are exciting and new, and sometimes I can “visualize” the final product before I even write a word.

Yet other times, I stare at the blank page/screen and wonder how to start. Sometimes the hardest part of the writing process is getting that initial idea out of one’s brain and onto paper, even though, in theory, it should be easy, if for no other reason than because first drafts are no-stakes drafts.

What’s a No-Stakes Draft?

A no-stakes draft is just what it sounds like. There is absolutely nothing at stake. (Remember Anne Lamott’s “Shitty First Drafts”?)

Things to keep in mind when writing a no-stakes draft:

• It doesn’t matter if the draft sucks.

• It doesn’t matter if the draft goes nowhere.

• No one ever has to see the draft.

• No one even has to know the draft ever existed.

• You define what makes a draft a draft, whether that be notes, sketches, or actual prose.

When I say “no stakes,” I mean that you literally have nothing to lose. Time maybe, but also not. (Schrodinger’s draft, anyone?) Any time you spend writing is time spent practicing, and any time you spend practicing is not wasted time.

I remember getting home from soccer practice as a kid and always wanting to play some more. With no one to play with, I’d kick the ball against the side of the shed in our backyard for hours, usually until it was too dark to see. I did it for fun, but I also unwittingly became really good at maneuvering the ball with my left foot, which eventually became an asset since, like most on the team, I was right-handed/right-footed. In fact, once I got to high school, I was one of only a couple of girls on the JV team who could play left wing well, and possibly the only one who took regular shots on goal (and occasionally scored) with my left foot.

Writing is the same. Any time you spend practicing can be beneficial, even if you’re just freewriting or writing what you think might be nonsense, because you’re exercising your writing muscle and possibly, like with my left foot, developing a particular skill that might not be obvious to you yet. So regardless of what you ultimately do—or don’t do—with a draft, the time you’ve spent on it is not wasted.

Bottom line: You lose absolutely nothing by writing/experimenting on the page. And you have everything to gain.

November…but It Could Be Any Month

November—which is unbelievably just around the corner—is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), but other genres have adapted NaNo to suit their own needs. (And it doesn’t have to be November—you can pick any segment of time and any time of year.) I wrote a “novel” (I use the term very loosely!) during NaNoWriMo one year (2008?), and it’s not something I ever plan to do again. But in both 2022 and 2023, I wrote a flash-fiction draft a day for the month of November, often based on prompts from Meg Pokrass.

For me and my purposes as a writer, writing thirty flash stories in November is a much more reasonable—and useful—exercise than writing a novel. But I’ll add that as bad as that “novel” I wrote is (I never even attempted a second draft with it), I’ve never felt like the time and effort spent on it were wasted, and the draft may still prove useful someday.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that writing a draft a day (even of flash or microfiction) is EXHAUSTING. I can’t speak for anyone else (obviously), but writing every day is not a sustainable routine for me; thirty days in a row is pretty much my limit. However, I like the thirty-flash-drafts-in-thirty-days challenge and plan to do it again this November. (Seriously, how is November just two days away??) Specifically, what makes it doable for me is the no-stakes aspect. There were some days in both 2022 and 2023 when I just wrote a few sentences or notes about something I’d want to write in the future—nothing even resembling a story. And guess what! In no-stakes generative writing, messy notes and just a few scribbled sentences COUNT. Partly because you make the rules, but also because no one has to know how rough your draft is (and no one is judging whether it’s even a draft or not).

The goal is simply to take away the intimidation of the blank page—to get something down. I still regularly go back to the drafts I wrote in November 2022 and 2023 and occasionally pull one out to work on. (Several have become actual stories, one of which is due out in Cleaver this December.) Sometimes there’s just enough of something there in that initial draft (occasionally just a sentence or two) to get me started on a new story. And I call that success.

“You Can’t Edit a Blank Page.”

“You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.” ~Jodi Picoult

I keep saying how intimidating a blank page can be, but writing that first (no-stakes) draft is also FUN—it should be, in fact! Let your creativity flow, and maybe the words will land just right the first time around. (Yes, sometimes that happens!) Last week I was at a wonderful writing retreat in West Virginia, where I put lots of words and ideas to blank pages, and now I’m looking forward to revising these words and ideas, molding them into stories. I’ve already got the first no-stakes drafts down; now I can focus on the subsequent no-stakes drafts—and that’s exciting to me!

As writers, we have to practice sitting down and making a blank page disappear—because you can’t edit a blank page! This is probably why generative workshops are so popular. It’s a way of practicing, creating a habit. And it does get easier over time. Writing itself may get harder over time, as you improve, experiment, etc., but the habit of writing should get easier the more you practice.

Photo of me at the WV retreat, reading a new(ish) piece.

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