Thomas Edison had tried thousands of things to make the first light bulb. A reporter, marveling at his determination, asked him how he could possibly perserve in the face of so much failure. Tom's response?
“I didn’t fail. I just found ten thousand ways that didn’t work.”
So much depends on perspective.
When I first tried this whole writing thing I started by reading books on how to do it. I was determined to avoid all those amateur mistakes that condemn a manuscript to the reject pile. I would never tell when I could show. I clensed my work of the infodump. Did a -ly word end up in something I wrote? Bless me Father for I have sinned. In retrospect I was using all this advice to make my inner critic stronger. The problem is he started doing steroids and muscling his way into everything
I found I couldn't get through a WIP without losing faith in the whole basic premise, or I would rewrite a scene endlessly. I was writing first drafts the way someone would defuse a bomb. I tried outlines. I tried stopping myself from editing. Nothing worked.
Then I decided to look at the first draft as if it were sky diving. I wanted to write a fearless first draft. My only rule became if its scary or uncomfortable it gets jotted down. Now I don't care if there are -ly words, or bad prose, or if my Mom would approve. I don't even care if the basic idea seems stupid. If I write a character badly, I tell my inner critic to come up with a better scene or to shut the hell up. Any time I'm wondering if I'm headed the wrong way, I push even faster. I want scary. I dare to be awful.
In the end, I have a glorious mess, but the ideas have more of that energy they had when I was first concieving them. The words seem to burn a little brighter even if the sentence they 're in is awkward. The approach isn't new. But the metaphor of it being a bunji cord jump liberated me enough to make it work.
I started wondering what other analogies people use. How do you see the first draft? What metaphors do you use to help you?
“I didn’t fail. I just found ten thousand ways that didn’t work.”
So much depends on perspective.
When I first tried this whole writing thing I started by reading books on how to do it. I was determined to avoid all those amateur mistakes that condemn a manuscript to the reject pile. I would never tell when I could show. I clensed my work of the infodump. Did a -ly word end up in something I wrote? Bless me Father for I have sinned. In retrospect I was using all this advice to make my inner critic stronger. The problem is he started doing steroids and muscling his way into everything
I found I couldn't get through a WIP without losing faith in the whole basic premise, or I would rewrite a scene endlessly. I was writing first drafts the way someone would defuse a bomb. I tried outlines. I tried stopping myself from editing. Nothing worked.
Then I decided to look at the first draft as if it were sky diving. I wanted to write a fearless first draft. My only rule became if its scary or uncomfortable it gets jotted down. Now I don't care if there are -ly words, or bad prose, or if my Mom would approve. I don't even care if the basic idea seems stupid. If I write a character badly, I tell my inner critic to come up with a better scene or to shut the hell up. Any time I'm wondering if I'm headed the wrong way, I push even faster. I want scary. I dare to be awful.
In the end, I have a glorious mess, but the ideas have more of that energy they had when I was first concieving them. The words seem to burn a little brighter even if the sentence they 're in is awkward. The approach isn't new. But the metaphor of it being a bunji cord jump liberated me enough to make it work.
I started wondering what other analogies people use. How do you see the first draft? What metaphors do you use to help you?
