Happy Writer Secret #1

Happy Writers have secrets that other writers don’t. Secrets that help them be Happy Writers. Secrets that let them love writing and bask in the glow of creativity.

I’m going to share with you, Happy Writer Secret #1:

You can’t write wrong.

Is that shocking to you?  Whatever you write is right.  Everything.

I should point out that whatever you write today might not be ready for publication.  It might not be what Editor X is looking for.  It might not spark the interest of every reader who reads it.  But it’s not wrong.

Because you can change it.

Getting Drafted

Writer Anne Lamott, in Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, calls it writing a “shitty first draft.”

New York Times Bestselling author Nora Roberts has long told writers that, “You can fix anything but a blank page.”

National Novel Writing Month was born of the idea that writers need to knock that internal critic off their shoulders and just write.

No matter how you look at the concept of the first draft, the important thing is getting the words down…any words. Because once they’re on the page, it’s then that you become a true artist.

Confession time:  I hate writing first drafts, likely because of my own self-doubt about whether I’m doing it right.  I wonder, though, if it’s more than that.  Am I really worried my words will be wrong?  Or am I worried that, by not getting it perfect on the first try, that I am somehow “wrong?”

That’s a lot of pressure to put on a few words…the upholding of your self-worth.

Once I’ve pushed past the scary first draft stage — often kicking and screaming the whole way — I love editing.  I adore rearranging scenes and polishing up the prose, figuring out how the story works and how to make the dialogue funnier or deeper or more emotional.

Editing is where miracles occur.  You take whatever words you’ve put on the page, like a sculptor with a lump of wet clay, and mold them and smooth them, add texture and color, move them around and delete them.  You can add to them and layer them with creamy filling until they resemble what you dreamed about before you started. Or what you grew to envision as you  wrote.

[I should point out, there are freaks out there writers who actually love first drafts -- some of my best writing buddies included.  For them, editing is as enjoyable as a root canal without anesthesia.  I’m completely unqualified to address what their problem is, because I just don’t get it.  I may need a guest blogger to address how to make writers Happy about editing.  Any takers?]

The Unbearable Rightness of Wrongness

What if, instead of being afraid of getting it wrong, we embraced the possibility of wrongness?

I read once that Picasso called his art “experiments” or “research.”  That’s a great way to look at it!  What would you try writing if you just called it an “experiment?”  Maybe a novel entirely made up of e-mails, like Meg Cabot’s The Boy Next Door?  I wonder if Cabot was afraid she’d get it wrong when she wrote it? (I picked up this book very reluctantly once I found out it was all e-mails…but it was great!)

I challenge you to write something this week that’s “wrong.”  Throw caution out the window and write.  Write dialogue that all rhymes or is only in Pig Latin.  Write backwards.  Take on that book idea you’re terrified of.

Just get the words out — no one has to see it — and then set it aside.  A week later, come back and re-read what you wrote.  Is there anything there?  An idea, a phrase, a concept? Anything to salvage?

Let us know what you come up with!

Image credit:  danielavladimirova

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