"WHAT?!" you say. Hear me out, or maybe that should be read me out. Either way...
When I started writing, the desire to write was a burning passion within me. I wanted it desperately. And everything I wrote sucked. I don't mean it was a little bit bad, I mean it was really, really lousy. Contrived, stilted, forced. That was my writing. No format was spared. I wrote bad songs, bad plays, bad poems. I didn't even know how bad I was.
Two things saved me from continuing down the enticing path of verbose failure: 1) a revelation of sorts; 2) time.
The revelation was that I was trying too hard. I wanted it so badly that I overdid everything. I was trying to force the stories out, and that does not work for me. This is not the same as forcing yourself to write to break past a block, or to establish good authorial habits. It's closer to telling someone to act normal when they know there's a gun pointed at them, and it just doesn't work.
The second saving quality is sadly not of the magical one-day-I-woke-up-and-wrote-like-a-genius type. And this is where my topic title comes in. It took a lot of writing to get where I am, and a lot of that was bad writing. Bad writing is practice. Practice is important for anything that you wish to master, be it the piano, a sport, or the ability to string words into a sentence that doesn't bore people to death. Practice is good. Bad writing is practice. Therefore, bad writing is good.
If you think you're writing is terrible, rejoice! You're practicing. As you continue to practice, you'll improve. Every literary masterpiece was rewritten and edited. Give yourself time, and permission to practice, and you'll continue toward becoming the best writer you can be.
In the meantime, cut yourself some slack.
When I started writing, the desire to write was a burning passion within me. I wanted it desperately. And everything I wrote sucked. I don't mean it was a little bit bad, I mean it was really, really lousy. Contrived, stilted, forced. That was my writing. No format was spared. I wrote bad songs, bad plays, bad poems. I didn't even know how bad I was.
Two things saved me from continuing down the enticing path of verbose failure: 1) a revelation of sorts; 2) time.
The revelation was that I was trying too hard. I wanted it so badly that I overdid everything. I was trying to force the stories out, and that does not work for me. This is not the same as forcing yourself to write to break past a block, or to establish good authorial habits. It's closer to telling someone to act normal when they know there's a gun pointed at them, and it just doesn't work.
The second saving quality is sadly not of the magical one-day-I-woke-up-and-wrote-like-a-genius type. And this is where my topic title comes in. It took a lot of writing to get where I am, and a lot of that was bad writing. Bad writing is practice. Practice is important for anything that you wish to master, be it the piano, a sport, or the ability to string words into a sentence that doesn't bore people to death. Practice is good. Bad writing is practice. Therefore, bad writing is good.
If you think you're writing is terrible, rejoice! You're practicing. As you continue to practice, you'll improve. Every literary masterpiece was rewritten and edited. Give yourself time, and permission to practice, and you'll continue toward becoming the best writer you can be.
In the meantime, cut yourself some slack.
RSS Feed