On Ice

Why I’m letting my new novel draft breathe for a bit.

Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

I just finished a new draft of my second novel—and like most first drafts, it’s a mess. A beautiful mess, but a mess all the same.

For context, this is the third full attempt I’ve made at cracking this story since selling my debut novel in 2022. This version has new characters, a new plot, and the same core themes: new parenthood, masculinity, father-son relationships, modern-day marriage. But this time, there’s also a thread running through it about the tech and devices designed to make our lives easier—and how they quietly reshape what it means to be a man, a partner, and a parent.

I finished the draft by writing every morning, five days a week, from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. for the past five months while my family was asleep and I wasn’t on the clock at my day job.

My goal each day was to write at least 1,000 words and leave myself some bread crumbs that I could pick up and follow during my next writing session.

I had a very rough idea of where things might go. I focused on moving forward and keeping up the momentum. Then around the 60,000-word mark, the engine started to sputter and that was my cue to stop.

Not to rewrite. Not to fix. Just stop and step away. So that’s what I’m doing now: putting the whole thing on ice for at least the next month or two.

Why am I doing this? Because I’ve learned the hard way that if I dive back in too soon, I’ll waste my time fine-tuning details on something I haven’t even fully figured out yet. I’ll spend weeks cutting lines, rearranging scenes, and rewriting dialogue. All useful work—but not when the foundation is still soft and mushy.

What is most important right now is setting up some strong beams. And to do that, I need some distance.

The kind of distance that lets me forget what I wrote. The kind that lets me return to it in a couple months not as the emotional guy who just birthed it, but as the “cool technician” Bret Easton Ellis talks about in this Paris Review interview. Someone who can read the work cold and ask: What the hell is this thing trying to be?

First drafts, or vomit drafts, like the one I just completed are really just for me. Their purpose is to help me figure out what story I’m trying to tell, what characters are important, and what vehicle I can package the story into to make it resonate in the way that I want it to and grip a reader (the reader, right now, being me). It is a playground for me to get down voices, scenes, and plot points, so that I can step back and ask myself: Where is the energy? Where am I having fun? Where do things feel unique and fresh?

How to Write a Vomit Draft—And Not Catch Feelings For It

I’ve tried outlining in the past. God bless those of you who can do it. But for me, it kills the magic.

My process is very intuitive, and almost like talking to a ghost: I have to listen closely and figure out what the book is telling me that it wants to be. That takes time, silence, and a little space.

So while this draft chills, I’m keeping busy.

I’m still waking up early. I’m reading books about AI, philosophy, and tech titans like Steve Jobs as part of my research. I’m reading some great unpublished novels and working on a few blurbs I’m on the hook for. I’m collaborating with a screenwriter on adapting Victim for the big screen.

In the midst of all this, my novel draft is still being worked on. Subconsciously.

I carry around a little notebook and find myself stopping to jot down ideas that strike me throughout the day for ways to deepen a character, ways to make the plot a little sharper, scenes I probably need to write, etc.

The story is gestating back there in my head—quietly becoming itself. And I’m confident that when I come back to the page, I’ll bring a bunch of new insights that I wouldn’t have had if I didn’t give myself time to leave it alone.

When I do return to the page, the plan is to read the whole thing straight through. No tinkering. Just absorb it like a book—a very bad, very rough book. I’ll mark scenes on index cards¹ (something new I’m looking forward to trying!), and once I have the full map laid out and understood, I’ll start shaping.

This might sound slow or tedious. But honestly, I’m so fucking excited. This is where it starts to get fun. I’ve got the raw clay, and this time, unlike the last two drafts I wrote where I was a little less certain, I know there’s something real there.

Now, I get to mold it, dance with it, and chase the energy until it starts to hum.

That’s my process, anyway. I’m curious about yours.

What do you do after a rough draft? Do you step away? Plunge right back in? Outline the next phase? Re-read with a red pen? Burn it and start over?

I’m interested to know how others handle the weird space between the mess and something polished, and I feel like others in this audience might be interested, too.

Sound off in the comments and let me know.

Peace,
Andrew

1. Shoutout to the novelist

Bud Smith

, who introduced me to this idea.