The secret to great writing…
…Is to write. It’s simple, but it isn’t always easy. Often, getting started on a piece of writing can be the hardest part of the whole process. You know that feeling.
You sit at your desk, you prepare to write, when the room suddenly looks like it needs a quick tidy. It’ll be quick, you rationalize. Once you’re finished, you realize that you haven’t replied to your friend who messaged you. We can’t keep them waiting, now can we? It’ll be quick, you rationalize once more.
And on and on this cycle of procrastination goes. You may not believe it, but no one is immune to this, even great authors.
In her insightful book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Anne Lamott writes how she and hundreds of other writers get started writing their works. It’s a practice that separates the greats from the rest.
What do they do? Write god awful first drafts. (Lamott actually uses the term “shitty first drafts” but I didn’t want to swear. Not today.)
By god awful, I mean god awful. Don’t care about spelling, structures, and sense. Just get it all down from your head to the document. It’s a child’s draft, Lamott writes. Let your mind romp and dance, writing whatever comes to your mind and through to your fingertips. Just punch the damn keyboard, as paraphrased from Sean Connery in the 2000 movie Finding Forrester.
Another piece of wisdom his character shared in the film was, “You write your first draft with your heart. But you rewrite with your head.”
Once you’ve finished your god awful first draft, you can call it a day. Then you revisit it tomorrow, and write a good second draft, a better third, then a brilliant fourth. Of course, you may not always have to take it the fourth round of rewriting. In any case, the idea stays the same: always be improving.
You can’t improve if you aren’t bad first.
So what are you waiting for? Write!