Create your clay

Writing a novel is like working with clay. You first create a rough shape, then massage that shape into something beautiful, such as an ashtray or a fearsome army of worms. Unlike potters, though, who can simply buy clay at the art supply store, novelists have to pull off the supernatural feat of creating their clay with their minds. It’s an amazing accomplishment, really, and it’s also why postponing judgment of your work until the end of your first draft is so important. What you started producing yesterday is noveling clay–valuable, essential, and invariably lumpy. Its beauty will grow as you work it.