Writing Well - Part 2 - Writing First Drafts
Writing tip: The belief that the 1st draft must be good makes working on it an intimidating prospect that often leads to paralysis. So let the 1st draft be junk; it should be purely about getting from start to finish, nothing more. You really write the piece when you rewrite it.
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Just start writing. Use your notes app. Open a doc. A scrap paper. Spill thoughts. Follow tangents. Let yourself ramble. Write something ugly and tangled and undeveloped. Not to produce or sound intelligent, but it’s to hear yourself again. To track the way your mind moves. To think your own thoughts without structure or pressure or input. You... See more
Perfectionism has nothing to do with getting it right. It has nothing to do with fixing things. It has nothing to do with standards. Perfectionism is a refusal to let yourself move ahead. It is a loop—an obsessive, debilitating closed system that causes you to get stuck in the details of what you are writing or painting or making and to lose sight
... See more"In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts."
Anne Lamott • Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
1. Write to Make Sense of Things
You don’t need to start with a point. You just need to start.
This is private writing. Messy, nonlinear, uncool. It’s the kind of writing that happens in the margins of your notebook, in half-sentences, in half-truths you’re still working through.
But this is where your best thinking gets born. This is where vague... See more
You don’t need to start with a point. You just need to start.
This is private writing. Messy, nonlinear, uncool. It’s the kind of writing that happens in the margins of your notebook, in half-sentences, in half-truths you’re still working through.
But this is where your best thinking gets born. This is where vague... See more