"Just Write" Is Terrible Advice

The first step to becoming an actual writer is to start. If you ask for advice on how to start writing, you’ll be met with a flood of:

“Just write!”

“Just write the first draft!”

Well, apparently it’s that easy...and it isn’t. I believe that the entire list of reasons we writers use to justify not writing boils down to one mental dilemma. That dilemma is the subconscious fear to not do anything at all that isn’t going to be accepted by others or pretty in nature.

We're Taught to Just Do Things Right

When I think about it, it was never really impressed upon me how to truly write a draft when I was in school. It was just, “Make sure your final report is polished.”

Naturally, kids want to get done with their homework as soon as possible. So I would simply make as few mistakes as possible, go over it once, and turn in something that was going to get a good grade. I’d be damned if I was going to waste my time, and I’d be worse than damned if I got a bad grade.

Parents of overachievers aren’t very understanding once they’ve gotten a taste of what it’s like to have an honor roll student.

The more I think into this, it becomes clear that we are all mentally programmed NOT to write unless it’s necessary, and not to waste our time writing anything that isn’t acceptable.

You wouldn’t sign up for the talent show if you knew you were going to embarrass yourself with your first performance, you wouldn’t give a presentation at work if it wasn’t well-rehearsed, and you wouldn’t challenge someone to a dance-off if all you could do was ‘the walking man’ or whatever it’s called.

You would practice before you did any of these things, and we aren’t taught how to practice writing. We are told to just present finished and acceptable work.

Fear of Failure Causes Procrastination

We are all subconsciously aware that, should we do something, it better be damn good. This manifests itself in the form (for me anyway) of putting off projects until I know every little detail (not possible), convincing myself that it’s not a good time to write (not true), and not making even loose plans because nothing ever truly goes according to plan (very true).

My instincts tell me that I’d rather live life flying by the seat of my pants than put together a plan that might fail.

It’s fear of failure that causes procrastination. That fear is programmed into us from the time we can form memories. It’s programmed by society, by our parents, by our peers, and by our teachers.

It’s fear of the shame that we will feel for doing something wrong. Your first draft is going to be an unpublishable mess, and creating such hot trash feels wrong.

What we should really be taught is how to create a pile of garbage and sort through it. We should be taught to practice AND that practice is ugly.

Some of Us Need a More Literal Approach

As a side note, if you’re an English teacher, now might be a good time to require that your students turn in their rough drafts along with their final work. The rougher the better. Oh, how I wish I was taught to throw a stream of consciousness on a page before attempting to write anything that made any sense at all.

That jumbled up mess of words is the playdough on the table, so to speak. Most people spend their lives never even getting the playdough off the shelf. However, once it’s in front of you, there is so much you can do.

This is where the advice of “just write” falls short. It doesn’t explain that you need to write something that is just plain awful, so you can fix it up later. Once you recognize the root of your fear, it’s much easier to overcome it.

Now that you know you’re going to have to create something awful first, you can be proud that you spent the whole day creating it. Just know that it will be better later and that you’ve actually done something worth while.

Please Write Badly

There is no perfect first draft. So get a dumpster, light it on fire, and extinguish it later. It’s all part of the process.

I've had people tell me that what I've said here is exactly what “just write” means, but that doesn't fix the fact that it doesn’t work well for those of us that need to be told to “just write badly”.

Don’t let fear of rejection or ridicule stop you from writing something that you’re never actually going to show to anyone else until it’s rewritten and edited.

Oh, and hide your 'first drafts' folder deep, deep within your files where no one will ever find it.

What do you think?

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