I'm a writer--and, if I'm being honest, a rather deprecating one, at that. I didn't go to a fancy school (or any school) to surround myself with other wordies and revered classics. Honestly, I haven't even rubbed the pages of most classics because I went to a private school that shunned most of those tomes due to their wordly content. Still, I did my best to annihilate every Scholastic book flyer I got my hands on, reading anything and everything that didn't set off my mom's well-honed radar.
The silver lining to this is I have not wasted time reading books I'll inevitably loathe just to say I'd read them, like some hoity-toity literary To-Do List. I don't feel the pressure to write like Homer or Dickens (or anyone else) because I write what I want to write. I write with a voice no one else can stake claim to, and I'm comfortable in my storyteller skin.
But my writing sucks.
Everyone's writing sucks.
At least, in the beginning.
No matter what they think, very few writers exude brilliance and bring readers to tears on their first try. As in most things, practice makes perfect. Writing is a learned art, where the artist learns how words bend and shift in the hands and on the page. Writers push limits and strive for balance--but this license comes with trying and failing, with crumpled pages and pounding your head on the keyboard. If you want to truly be successful in writing--or anything, really--you must keep on keeping on. You must embrace that the first draft of anything is likely crap (even, and maybe even especially, if it feels brilliant). If you get caught up on making the first sentence of anything perfection, you'll struggle to move past that point. Make friends with the concept that you must start somewhere, and the longer you twiddle the words around in your mind, the more at home they will feel. If you keep at it, what you consider now to be your best writing will be the stepping-stone for greater writing in your future. The key is to be persistent.
Keep trying, even when your word faucet is only trickling.
Keep trying, even when you don't feel smart enough.
Keep trying, even when you feel like everything you write is untouchable genius.
Keep trying, even when you feel like everything you write is garbage.
You're in good company. This is how we all get better--by getting comfortable in our creative skin.
To read more favorite writing quotes by my writing tribe, visit thewritepractice.com/become-a-better-writer-quotes
The silver lining to this is I have not wasted time reading books I'll inevitably loathe just to say I'd read them, like some hoity-toity literary To-Do List. I don't feel the pressure to write like Homer or Dickens (or anyone else) because I write what I want to write. I write with a voice no one else can stake claim to, and I'm comfortable in my storyteller skin.
But my writing sucks.
Everyone's writing sucks.
At least, in the beginning.
No matter what they think, very few writers exude brilliance and bring readers to tears on their first try. As in most things, practice makes perfect. Writing is a learned art, where the artist learns how words bend and shift in the hands and on the page. Writers push limits and strive for balance--but this license comes with trying and failing, with crumpled pages and pounding your head on the keyboard. If you want to truly be successful in writing--or anything, really--you must keep on keeping on. You must embrace that the first draft of anything is likely crap (even, and maybe even especially, if it feels brilliant). If you get caught up on making the first sentence of anything perfection, you'll struggle to move past that point. Make friends with the concept that you must start somewhere, and the longer you twiddle the words around in your mind, the more at home they will feel. If you keep at it, what you consider now to be your best writing will be the stepping-stone for greater writing in your future. The key is to be persistent.
Keep trying, even when your word faucet is only trickling.
Keep trying, even when you don't feel smart enough.
Keep trying, even when you feel like everything you write is untouchable genius.
Keep trying, even when you feel like everything you write is garbage.
You're in good company. This is how we all get better--by getting comfortable in our creative skin.
To read more favorite writing quotes by my writing tribe, visit thewritepractice.com/become-a-better-writer-quotes
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