As Teresa Nielsen-Hayden reminded me the other day, I received a Certificate of Permission to Write Badly at Viable Paradise. What this means is that I can write horrid first drafts of my work, and it doesn't matter. What matters is that I'm writing.
Fixes come later. So too does perfection. Not that there's ever perfection in writing, and any writer who tries is just trapping herself in an endless cycle of "it's not ready yet." But essentially, I have permission from both editors and pro writers to write clichés, stereotyped characters, bad plot elements, and leave gaping holes in my manuscripts when I first put fingers to keyboard or pen to paper.
So here I am, banging my head against a wall on one particular project, throwing words against my screen to see what sticks. It all sucks. Very very sucky writing this is. You know what? I don't care. I can't care. If I care too much, it won't get done.
And as the old saying goes, "You can't fix what isn't written."
So, sucky writing now. Fixing later. Internal editor set to off. And here I go, moving fingers across the keyboard and motivating myself to put something on virtual paper.
But before I go, I am photocopying a copy of my Certificate and handing it out to anyone who wants one. It's okay to be horrible. It's okay to write crap. Just as long as you write. Write first, fix later. First drafts are allowed to suck and you have my permission to share this fact with the entire world.
