Illustration of "Brianna's Book Stop" by Jeffrey Duckworth / Book Cover for WHERE DO DIGGERS SLEEP AT NIGHT? (on the bookmobile) by Christian Slade

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

The Importance of Writing Badly

I used to write very, very slowly. At the time, I thought that was the only way to write. Each word had to be perfect before I moved on.

There is nothing wrong with writing this way, if it works for you. I am a huge believer that each writer has her own writing process. But for me, it wasn't working. I was worried too much about perfection and not creating anywhere near enough writing.

Recently I was working on a first draft of a new manuscript, and I kept reminding myself...
perfection is not the goal!

"Just get something down," I would tell myself. "And then you can make it better."

And it worked! For me the blank page is incredibly intimidating. Whatever will I write?

But, once there is something (anything!) on that page, revision is so much fun! I love polishing (and polishing and polishing and polishing), my words until they shine!

Once I had something down for each stanza, that sense of blank page intimidation went away. Then I just got to play to make each stanza better.

And play I did! It was so much fun!

To be clear, I am sure this manuscript is not yet done. But, I am equally sure that it is much further along than it would be if I had worried about perfection from the very beginning.

So I wonder: Do you allow yourself to write badly? Do you encourage (or even celebrate) it? Why or why not?

8 comments:

  1. I'm a slow writer, though not a perfectionist. I do find that fast drafting works better for those who write novels. I can't imagine typing away rapidly a four-hundered word PB text.
    But then, maybe rapid writing allows the writer to get out of their own way. You are correct in doing what works.

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    1. Awesome point, Mirka! I agree, picture books do not usually go so fast! Just because thinking through every part of the plot is so key (no room for wasted words :) ). I guess this one was able to go particularly quickly because I was following a structure I had used before. And because I had done a lot of brainstorming previously. So I was not starting with a true blank slate at all, I guess. :) But in the past, even that much of a blank slate would have felt intimidating.

      Like you, I am still a slow writer much of the time. Just exciting to find a way to, as you nicely put it, "get out of (my) own way" once in a while and go faster.

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  2. Brianna, yes. Writing badly allows me to go fix it later ... But seeing the gap, in what I want and what I can do is always hard. So I keep at it. What's nice is that over time, I can see the gap getting smaller. I'm still not close to where I want to be, but after a dozen years, I see how much I've improved.

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    1. That is awesome that you can see the gap getting smaller, Vijaya! Improvement is the key! (I just started a project that is so scary to me. I don't know if I can ever do something this hard. So I am definitely seeing that gap. But writing badly is allowing me to at least get started. Hopefully my ability to capture what I imagine down on paper will get better as I work on it. :) )

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  3. I'm a very slow writer, too, Brianna, and I give myself permission to just write, whether it's well or badly. My revision runs numerous rounds and this is the way I prefer it to be. :)

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    1. I love that, Claudine! Giving ourselves the permission to write-- whether well or badly is so important! And numerous rounds of revisions are definitely a key for me too. :)

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  4. I used to be the exact same way. I'd read over what I'd written for weeks, polishing and tweaking and rewording. And that's how I wound up with some lovely opening chapters and NO finished manuscripts. Haha. Finally, one year I jumped into doing NaNoWriMo, and I think that forced me to get the words down first and worry about making them sound good later.

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  5. Oh my! I so understand that, Anna! That was exactly the way it was for me when I first started writing! For years, I worked on a chapter book-- one super-slow, perfectly polished chapter at a time. I am so glad that I finally figured out that it was really okay (and even helpful!) to let myself write it badly. (And it makes revision so fun, once there is something down on the page to revise. :) )

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