Drafting and revising

As I move through the first draft of my Cold War novel, I find areas that need to be tweaked or changed, places the story board is not as strong as at first glance, revisions that need to be done -- but unless they are major, I make a note of them but keep moving forward. The key to a first draft, I think, is to finish it as quickly as possible. All the "real writing" happens later, after the draft, when one can stare at a paragraph for as long as it takes to get it right. You do that in the rush of a draft and you can lose your train of thought and stop moving forward. With the draft, the movement of the story is sketched. Indeed, a draft is like an artistic sketch before a painting. First the sketch, then the painting; first the draft, then the novel. First drafts are mostly a pain in the butt for me but this one is more fun than usual because it is so autobiographical about a pleasant, unusual time of my life, my experiences as a Russian linguist in the Army Security Agency. It's just fun to revisit this time of my life, three years, when I was 20, 21 and 22. At the same time, I can't wait to finish the damn draft -- hopefully before summer -- so I can slow down the frantic rush of writing (get it down before it leaves your head!) and stare at words for a while, thinking of better ones to replace them with. The slow meticulous process of rewriting, which is the real joy of being a writer as far as I'm concerned.