My Current Writing Struggles | First Drafts, Insecurities, & Disappointment

A new novel’s early drafting phase is colliding with an expectation of “perfect” momentum—and that mismatch is driving a wave of insecurity. Saltbirds is being written after a period of heavy revision on earlier work, and the process isn’t delivering the same kind of story “magic” that arrived when Honey Vinegar first began. Instead of feeling the book come alive immediately, the writer is finding scenes that feel too short, plot threads that aren’t yet clicking, and a persistent sense that the first draft should already be as airtight as later revisions.

The disappointment traces back to how the writer learned to trust their own method. Past confidence came from seeing that drafting could improve ideas rather than degrade them: writing made the story better than what existed only in the head. Honey Vinegar, built after long revision cycles, still felt like a breakthrough because the novel’s drafting process produced something richer than the initial thought. Saltbirds, by contrast, is being held to the standard of a much later draft—an expectation shaped by the writer’s recent experience with polishing and restructuring. That leads to frustration when early scenes don’t behave like they will after multiple rounds of cutting, adding, and reshuffling.

A second factor is mindset. After a year and a half of revising other projects, the writer has been operating in a perfection-focused mode—less willing to be messy, less willing to experiment, and more likely to treat “drafting” as a test rather than a discovery process. The writer now recognizes a key pattern: their best work often starts shaky, then “clicks” once they keep going, allowing character, plot, and themes to reveal themselves through the act of writing. Saltbirds is forcing that lesson again, but it’s taking longer than hoped to reach the point where momentum feels inevitable.

The insecurity also shows up as comparisons to Honey Vinegar’s structure and pacing. Saltbirds is described as a different kind of story: lower-intensity on the surface, with the main action largely internal and psychological. Even if the books share some thematic DNA, the writer is trying to make Saltbirds behave like “Honey Vinegar round two,” and that expectation doesn’t match the new narrative’s mechanics. The writer notes that Honey Vinegar was more “plotty” than anticipated, while Saltbirds requires different fuel—especially as multiple relationships must be introduced and allowed to energize one another.

Despite the struggle, there are concrete bright spots. A recent scene between Rowan and a key relationship—framed as the novel’s backbone—landed well, and the writer is drawn to “weird” emotional dynamics: relationships that fulfill roles they “shouldn’t” fulfill, or that act like other kinds of relationships. The writer is also mapping how background ties (like family history and an email-based friendship) will shape Rowan’s behavior, and they’re aiming for a claustrophobic “bottle episode” summer setting that makes conflict unavoidable.

The takeaway is less about whether Saltbirds is “good enough” and more about process trust: rough patches are normal, and the writer’s method depends on writing through difficulty until the story starts to move. To rebuild daily momentum, they’re considering a light NaNoWriMo-style push—working on the book every day for a month—while they’re still deciding whether that schedule will help at their current stage.