It’s hard isn’t it? Writing.
It seems like an age is spent, crafting that perfect sentence for your ground-breaking novel, right in that nifty little brain of yours. You pick up your pen, or type on your keyboard and stare in wonder at the genius that is you.
Except for the fact that when you see your marvelous idea written done, it is for some reason or another, utter shite.
There are several reasons for this, none of which are that you’re terrible and should never write again. Perhaps it’s a truly great sentence but doesn’t flow with the rest of the paragraph. Or maybe it’s written with the sole intent to fit in as many unusual adjectives as you can incredulously muster (I do hope you see how poorly that reads, though I am just as guilty of doing this as all of you.)
Most likely it’s because the thought word often doesn’t translate to the written word. It’s my belief that the thought word is worthless, but the written word is gold. Instead of spending hours mulling over the prefect sentence to describe your character’s anguish at an impossible choice, write it down.
It doesn’t have to be good, chances are it will be terrible and that’s okay. Rome wasn’t built in a day and a novel isn’t complete on its first draft. Hell, this wasn’t complete on its first draft and it’s probably not complete now.
The sad truth of the matter is that you will find more time is spent editing what is written than writing new, fresh material. But you can’t edit what isn’t there in front of you.
What do you do? Well it’s both simple and very difficult. As you stare at that blank page in front of you, don’t waste time in your head, write it down.
It’ll be rubbish, but it’ll be something. Written by Kirsty Macdonald