Reminiscing Over First Drafts

Posted bydmcadminPosted inUncategorized
I was cleaning up my files and came across this – the first draft of what became Alis the Aviator! Looking at these pages brought up the memory of sitting on my little backyard patio in Edmonton in June 2014. My son, Andre, was about two years old at the time. I had finally gotten him down for his afternoon nap and I brought my favourite notepad out with these blank scrap pages (I like doing rough drafts or outlines this way. It feels way less precious. These pages were literally destined for the recycling bin anyway, so who cared if I made a mess!)

I had just finished my second aviation history book and I had so many random aviation facts in my brain. Like the poetry I wrote in my teens and twenties, I had been carrying around words and lines for days in my head. So when I sat down to write, it all came pouring out. Many of the aircraft and even the words are exactly the same now as they were in this draft!
I had fun playing around with rhyming words, trying to figure out how to fill the blank spots in the alphabet. All those years spent writing poetry and song lyrics really came into the process. It came down to rhythm, rhyme and a whole lot of fun!

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