I’m not saying there’s a definite answer to this post’s titular question. It might well depend on a writer’s individual style and preferences–what nurtures their creativity and feeds their spirit.

But for me, the answer is absolutely YES.

I did NaNoWriMo (or National Novel Writing Month) once, eleven years ago. I don’t plan to ever do it again.

It was the only time I ever outlined, so maybe that had something to do with it.

Maybe I shouldn’t outline and am just a pantser at heart.

Maybe I should have given myself more permission to stray from the outline and write that failed draft as more of a “pantser-plotter” combination.

Maybe I should have just given myself a bit more breathing room in terms of how fast I plowed through it. I hit 50,000 words halfway through that November, after all, and just kept going. (To be fair, the whole point of NaNoWriMo is just to write. Quickly. To get something down on the page, which, I certainly did.)

Whatever the case, looking back, the draft is a complete disaster, and I’ve never done anything more with it.

It’s FAR more of a disaster than any other first draft I’ve written.

• I have an entire subplot of ridiculous, stupid melodrama. I should have seen it wasn’t presenting as I’d intended it to, tone-wise, but I was writing too quickly to see that. That whole subplot will have to completely shift in ways I can’t begin to fathom.
• It ends in a cliffhanger. Awful stuff.

My first drafts take me some time, but I enjoy the process of writing them. I get a feel for what needs to happen by taking it as slowly as I may need to.

By the time they’re done, they need work, sure. There are lots of consistency edits. But the skeleton of the story I need to tell has always been there at the end of a first draft.

The skeleton here is broken and unusable in multiple ways like I’d never experienced before.

I think I wrote it too fast for me. NaNoWriMo took me too far out of my writing routine / system and what makes writing work for me. It’s a great program, and I’m super glad I did it once, and I do understand why they want to give people that experience of just pouring words out.

I guess I’m a quality over quantity gal. I need a first draft that at least’s good enough that I can go into edits with a game plan, knowing what needs doing. NaNoWriMo left me in over my head when all was said and done . . . er, written.

There are aspects of the story I like, but I’m basically going to have to rewrite everything. I’ve never done that before.

So, what do you think? Is it possible to write a first draft too quickly? Is it possible for a first draft to be too bad for you to bother trying to fix?

Anyways, feel free to check out book one of my sword and sorcery/fantasy trilogy now available on Amazon. There are reviews on the blog, character spotlights, and excerpts. The book website is here.