Thoughts on Finishing my First Draft | writing for myself, new process, & being happy

Finishing a first draft of “Honey Vinegar” took 18 months, but the real breakthrough wasn’t speed—it was a shift in how Jalen writes and how she trusts herself. After years of drafting quickly, outlining heavily, and then growing frustrated with the results, she found that writing short fiction trained her to draft more intuitively, sink deeper into story decisions, and stop relying on “crutches” like outlines. That change set the stage for a novel process that felt closer to discovery writing than to rigid planning.

Her timeline shows how the new approach unfolded under real constraints. She began drafting in October 2018 after registering for a fourth-year novel workshop she didn’t initially want—she was thriving in short fiction and lacked a novel idea. The first chapters arrived fast: once she started writing, ideas “would not stop,” and each small step forward produced exponential clarity about characters, plot, and even the ending. She initially planned to draft the first 10,000 words and then outline the rest, but she abandoned that plan, saying the discovery method was both more fun and connected to her best writing so far.

The draft moved through a workshop-and-revision cycle that shaped what could be workshopped. She revised early chapters (1–3) for school feedback, then later revised chapters 4–5, while the rest of the book continued drafting through spring and summer. Chapter 10 became her biggest roadblock; she got unstuck by forcing herself to write through the knot rather than staring at it—untangling the problem by continuing the draft. By August she finished part one (through the end of chapter 13), then took a break while rewriting her earlier novel, “Someone Will Save You.”

Workshop feedback played a key role, especially early on. She received input for roughly the first third of the manuscript, and she credits it with preventing major oversights. But because the story kept changing dramatically during discovery writing—she even altered the time period—the later sections would have been confusing to workshop from the earlier version. To manage revision load, she also edited “as she wrote,” and she ultimately completed part two from late December through early March.

Beyond craft, the biggest lesson was psychological: she stopped writing for imagined approval. She realized she had previously second-guessed choices based on what “other people” might think, even letting that anxiety affect story events. With “Honey Vinegar,” she trusted her vision, worried far less about hypothetical readers, and felt confident enough to love the work while it was still unfinished. She describes a pattern of early overconfidence followed by doubt and limping to the finish line—followed by hating the book later—but says this time she reached genuine pride. The novel, paired with her short fiction collection, taught her to respect her own work, “write selfishly” in the sense of writing for her artistic conviction, and accept that loving a draft doesn’t require earning permission. The result: not just a completed first draft, but a more stable relationship with her creativity—and a decision to care less about outside judgment.