Thursday, August 19, 2010

Do Something Stupid

All too often, we are terrified of writing something terrible.  We spend so much energy on figuring out if our ideas are stupid or boring and modifying ones that just aren't good enough.  We never seem to know what's right, but we always know when something's wrong.

Screw it.  Go do something stupid.  Write a predictable story.  Write a stale story with flat characters.  Write a story with a narration so thoroughly confusing that even you have to read it a few times to figure out what's going on.

Why not?  What are you afraid of?  Write some trash.  Don't feel compelled to share it with the world, but get it out of your system.  Realize that you won't die from doing it.  Realize that even when you specifically try to write trash, your voice will always be in there, and you will probably come up with a few things you enjoyed.  Everything you do is infused with you.

Writing is not a planned obstacle course.  Success does not happen by avoiding failure.  Making a wrong step doesn't make everything fall apart.  It's a lot more confusing and indescribable than that.  So don't worry.  Just do something, even if it's stupid.  It's way better than doing nothing.

No comments:

Post a Comment