Just Write: Quite Possibly the Best Writing Advice Ever Given

Image by jjpacres via FlickrThe best thing you can do (besides showing and not telling) is to just let your first draft...you know...happen. Don't stress too much. That's what revision is for, anyway.

Yesterday I didn't quite manage to get in my two hundred words. I know that's not much of a goal for more seasoned writers, but I tend to get distracted. Two hundred words a day is a pretty reasonable number from which I can work my way up.

Oh! The joy of one day being able to write one thousand words on a bad day...alas, I fear it shall never come.

Well, the other day I sort of got on a roll and managed five hundred in about ten minutes...but that's not typical.

Normally it's all like..."Ooo! This is happening in the story!"

...and then ten seconds later...

"Nah...nah....this should happen instead...*super backspace of DOOM*

After about two hours of me doing this I've got about two hundred words. Sad, I know, but that's why I'm trying to listen to all of those people who tell me I should just write instead of worrying about the first draft being as perfect as the final. It is just a first draft, after all, isn't it?

After years of saying, "No! No, I can't do that! I have to make it good from the start or else...you know?", I think I finally understand why every writer in the world I've asked for advice has told me that. It really does work! You actually get something done. I would recommend this to everyone were it not extremely possible that everyone else is already doing it.

So if you aren't...DO IT! It's fun. I promise.

I just want to write stories that people enjoy. Honestly, where would any of us be without a good story to take us somewhere we've never dreamed we'd go?

Not in Mexico. That's for sure.

Not in Mexico.

You know, sometimes it's best to ignore me.