It's Not 'Creative Vomit'.

Shadows stretch across my light-grey studio wall like fingers reaching for the light switch, urging the room to fall dark and for me to call it a day.

Ignoring the invitation, I turn back to my keyboard, take a breath, close my eyes, and reflect on the week spent working on my manuscript’s second draft.

Today’s been special—though, since starting this creative writing process, most days are.

In my last journal post, I mentioned it’s been six months since typing ‘The End’ on my first draft. Life gets in the way—the good and the not‑so‑good—and now, thank goodness, the air has  cleared enough for me to return to creative writing.

A couple of weeks ago, I eagerly turned the opening page of my 120,000‑word manuscript and couldn’t believe how much my writing had changed since those early lessons—and how much more I’ve still got to learn.

After reading the first ten chapters, an email arrived from the Australian Writers’ Centre suggesting I consider a fourth course—Cut Shape Polish: How to Edit Your Own First Draft.

It made sense to start, and it wasn’t long into the first module before I realised I’ve become quite good at making rookie errors.

I’m now into the third module, and I keep catching myself pausing mid‑scene, realising how each character’s wants, goals, and motivations are like an imperfectly formed spider’s web—fragile, stretched, and waiting for its creator to repair old connections or weave new ones.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve extracted a full list of every scene, labelled and timelined them. And my BIG learning came from dedicating time to write, in longform, each character’s wants, goals, motivations, attributes, and voice. It’s helped immensely in developing new ideas for how all of that interacts to move the story toward its ending.

And, oh my goodness, it’s both exciting and daunting knowing the plot and characters are solid, yet I’m constantly discovering ways to cut, shape, and polish scenes, connections, and pace to make this second draft stronger than the first.

In one of my earlier courses, a tutor encouraged us to simply get the first draft written—that it doesn’t matter if it’s ‘creative vomit’ (or something like that). The goal is to finish.

The feedback I received from my rookie error of sending the first draft out early was encouraging—it isn’t creative vomit. However, working through this second-draft process, I’m discovering why my tutor was constantly encouraging us to just get it done—so I can get on with making it better.

As I finally yield to the shadows’ invitation to knock off for the day, my note to myself is simple: keep going. This is fun. It’s squeezing the creative juices that have been waiting to be ignited, and with all that’s still ahead, I’m genuinely looking forward to the challenge.

Over the next week I’ll keep working through the first draft, aiming to finish this initial read‑through. Once that’s done, I’ll return to the Cut Shape Polish course and see what they recommend next as I prepare to begin the second draft.

When I know what that is, I’ll share it with you in my next journal post.

Until then, my very best to you.

If you’d like to follow my writing journey, you can find me on my Facebook Author Page.