My name is Teresa Shine Hinton and I'm a recent graduate of Southern New Hampshire University and I earned a Master's Degree in English and Creative Writing. The way I work on a first draft may be considered basic to some people, but it works for me. If I'm going to write a long piece, the first thing I do is create a very informal outline of the things I want to focus on in the piece. When I say the outline is informal, I mean it's very informal.
Even if a section of the outline is only one word, I choose one that I can build off of. An example of that is the word poker that I scribbled down when I was creating the outline for my memoir. Many people may wonder how I could build off such a singly and unimportant word, but for me, that one word triggered a flood of memories that involve a use of a fire poker as a weapon. You have to find words that will either trigger memories for you or help you pre… when it comes to the actual typing of a piece and a first draft, I use a highlight feature a lot.
I use highlights to show working points, places that need to be expanded, or areas that need to be deleted altogether. Finally, with regards to time settings, I need quiet. There was a time when I was able to work with a lot of noise going on or anything going on around me, but as I've grown in years and grown in my writing, I've learned that I have to have complete quiet.