For Beginning Writers – My Writing is Awful!

Of course it is. So is mine. This might be a great time to purchase a copy of Anne Lamott’s Bird By Bird and read her third chapter about terrible first drafts. And then read the rest of the book.

All writing starts with junk, stuff no one will ever see. No matter how accomplished a writer is, their early drafts are awful. We have to write the junk to get to the good stuff. This is the only way good writing occurs. Quality comes of quantity. 

Learning to write is just like learning to play the piano or learning French. You don’t play Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 23 in your first six months of lessons. And you don’t read Les Miserables in the original language in the first few weeks. What you’re perceiving as failure is actually great news. You have a bunch of bad writing! This is iron-clad evidence of progress!