Write It Badly

A Real Writer sits down at his beautiful desk, and magic flies from his fingers. Beautiful words appear on the page or the screen, with very little effort from him.

And then WE sit down to write, hoping for the same magic to flow - to somehow make instant sense of the concept in our brains and convert that concept into perfect words. And it rarely, if ever, happens that way. But we think it should, and so we criticize ourselves before, during, and after our writing.

"This stinks."

"Why did I even think I could write this?"

"Who is going to want to read this?"

"Everything else out there is so much better."

In reality, writing is process. We need fertilizing time for our ideas. To flesh them out from basic, unformed concepts into something more tangible. Something with some meat behind it. Details. Facts. Figures. Illustrations. Stories. Then, comes the rough (there is a VERY good reason it's called "rough") draft, which is really an experiment. "Let's throw all those ideas, details, facts, figures, illustrations down and see how they land." Finally, revising and editing where we see if it landed well, or if we need to rearrange.

We move back and forth between those steps in the process: fertilization (this can happen any time), writing roughly, and revising and editing.

The place where we get stuck the most often is writing. We don't spend enough time fertilizing, and we think that our writing should be so perfect when it comes out on paper or on screen that it doesn't need any revising and editing. So, in those cases, writing really does look like writing only, instead of the full-fledged process it really is.

And that's our downfall.

Better to get rid of that perfection expectation altogether and remember that it's a rough FIRST draft that we're creating when we actually start putting words together. Better yet, just plan on writing badly. That takes off all the pressure.

Here's what writing badly looks like.

Just get the thoughts down, all the thoughts. No editing or judging ("that's a stupid idea" or "that will never fly"). The purpose is to get everything down.

Don't look for the perfect word. If necessary, just write your thoughts ("I'm looking for a word that sort of means 'perfect' but not quite....")

Don't worry about flow and connection. That's too hard to create out of raw ingredients.

Make notes, even in the middle of writing. Have an idea about the conclusion? Write it down somewhere else and then come back to your writing-it-badly draft.

Follow the energy. If you feel driven to jump to middle of your article, do so. You'll write more passionately and clearly than if you to try to force yourself into some pre-ordained (by whom, by the way?) box of the "right way" to write.

Stop and go back to the fertilizing stage. Write as much as you can, and when you can't write any more, then play with concepts or wherever you might be stuck.

Forget about proper grammar, punctuation, usage, and mechanics - for now. That's for the editing and revision stage. When you concentrate on the linear logic of grammar and mechanics, you shut off the creative energy. And that's what the write-it-badly draft is for: to continue to create from your concept and form it into words.

Get as much of what you want to convey into words. This is where quantity counts. Since you're committing to writing it badly, then write as much as possible.

Then, once your write-it-badly draft is done, you can back to spit-and-polish, revise and edit mode. And, before you know it, you'll be a Real Writer, too.