(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



Write On! Give Yourself Permission to Suck. [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-10-05  

“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”

— Thomas Mann

Good evening, writers! One piece of advice I saw somewhere and which I think is important to hear is that it is okay to suck. It is okay to be bad. It is okay for your first (or second, or third) draft to stink on toast. All writing is rewriting, and you can’t edit a blank page, but even beyond that, if you’re starting out, not everything you write is going to be Nobel Prize in Literature-worthy. Heck, not even if you’re an experienced, practiced, published writer (which I am not).

It would be great if everything we wrote was wonderful and moving and engrossing, it would be awesome to be some King Midas of writers whose keyboard (or pen) turned every turgid piece of prose into literary gold.

But that ain’t life. So before you beat yourself up, or toss your draft in the junk (or recycle bin), give yourself a break. Cut yourself some slack. It’s okay. I’m okay, you’re okay, as the man once said.

“No outline survives first contact with the word processor.”

Because the only way to suck less is to practice, and edit, and try, try again. So don’t sweat it.

One of my favorite quotes on writing is from Neil Gaiman:

“This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it’s done. It's that easy, and that hard.”

― Neil Gaiman

But I just discovered another quote from him. It’s from a blog post. I’ll just quote this bit here, but believe me, it is worth it to click through and read the rest.

Tonight’s Challenge:

Write a short passage, and make mistakes. Or at the very least, don’t worry too much if there are any mistakes. Because even if you’re making mistakes, you’re still making something.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/5/2193375/-Write-On-Give-Yourself-Permission-to-Suck?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/