I did it again.

The same thing I did with my first novel, my second, my third, my fourth, my fifth and my sixth. This time with the seventh, I convinced myself my first draft was actually good. That it was showable. That it was not an embarrassing steaming pile of doo.

Guess what?

I WAS WRONG.

First drafts are never good. But yet because I was working off an outline, because I was methodical about daily revisions, because I carefully proofed the most recently written chapters each week, I was sure that this time I had dodged the first draft doody issue.

But you see, you can never dodge it. Because it is a fact of nature, a law of gravity, an immutable truth. First drafts suck. And writers always think they are good.

So when I saw this cartoon in last week’s Publishers Weekly I pretty much knew it was speaking to me. Yes, that’s me down there working on the second draft.