Stop calling it a “shitty first draft”

Thinking about, or worse, calling your rough draft a mean name is a terrible idea. I don’t care that the wonderful Anne Lamott coined the phrase, “Shitty First Draft,” it’s simply not helpful to think of your work-in-progress as anything less than filled with potential. And shitty?

I’m sorry, but we can beat that voice of the oppressor, perfection, another way.

Your challenge is to give your draft romance a nickname that makes you feel all the love for it that it deserves.

Whether you think of it as a rough draft or a first draft or simply a draft, identify that one word that describes your romance sub-genre or your hero or heroine’s most adorable character trait or the way future readers will describe the love story … something, anything, that reminds you that this love story it may be an ugly duckling right now but it is destined to  grow into something beautiful.

Here’s a list of over 200 possible adjectives to get you thinking.