How Getting Writing Wrong is Alright by Kathryn Evans

I've been beating myself up about this blog post.


It started out as:

I've left it too late to write anything well.

I can't think of anything decent to write about.



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That quickly spiralled into:

I never leave enough time for anything.

I never think of anything decent to write about.


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Followed by:

I'll have to resign from the Slushpile team.

I might as well stop kidding myself I can ever be a professional writer.


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SOUND FAMILIAR???

We can be crippled by a drive to be perfect from the outset. 

That, lovely writer pals, is striving for the impossible. Nothing is perfect - ever. Well, apart from babies and even they have flaws - they can't walk or talk for a start, they might as well not even bother trying to be a human - right?



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Of course not.

The same goes for your manuscript. I am just over 40,000 words into my third book. It's a pretty good idea, it's got okay characters but over all...it's rubbish. It's not even worthy of being called a first draft. It's Draft Zero.

But that's okay because once I have Draft Zero I can work my way up.  I'll have something to build on and it will get better. My book baby will learn to walk and talk...


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 One day, with any luck,  it'll even be big enough and clever enough to stand on its own two feet.



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Don't be held back by perfectionism.  Be happy to get things wrong: that's how we learn, how we grow, how we get better.

And look, I wrote a blog post! It may not be perfect, but it's a beginning and sometimes, that's all you need. Maybe it'll inspire one of you NaNoWriMo people to keep going and maybe the rubbish Draft Zero you are writing will  turn out to be a bestseller.

All from a blog post I thought I couldn't write.



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 Kathryn Evans is the award winning author of More of Me: A gripping thriller with a sinister sci-fi edge, exploring family, identity and sacrifice. She loves faffing about on social media: find her  on Facebook and Instagram @kathrynevansauthor , tweeting @KathrynEvansInk or her own website Kathryn Evans.