Today we’re going to talk about one of the hardest, yet most important, practices to develop when you’re building a writing habit. Here we go with #6:

Keep writing even if you think it’s bad.

Maybe this has happened to you: you write a piece (blog post, social media post, podcast, article, email, etc.) and you don’t think it’s that great. However, somebody else loves it.

It’s baffling but it’s true: we are not always the best judge of the quality of our work. As someone once said, “What you think of me is none of my business.” And there’s some truth to that when it comes to how others perceive our writing.

When we’re writing, we tend to judge it, but it’s important that we realize we don’t always know when something will resonate with someone. In other words, it’s almost impossible to be objective about our own work. So, keep on writing even when you don’t think it’s very good.

William Faulkner said, “Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it’s the only way you can do anything really good.”

Plus, when you keep writing, it’s the only way to actually finish something. If you’re always in editing and revision mode, and never in creation mode, it will take forever to get something done. So just keep writing and you can go back and revise later.

Question: Do you feel you are objective about your writing? Be honest.

The post Writing Habits Practice #6: Keep Going Even When It’s Bad appeared first on Daily Writer | Essential Habits for Impact & Influence.

A common problem we writers have is how to get started. We have a rough vision of what we want to create, but we’re afraid to take that first step.

What if we go in the wrong direction? What if we discover we aren’t really talented? What if someone thinks it’s no good? What if this whole thing was a giant mistake?

When we’re wrestling with the blank page, our minds can go in all sorts of negative directions. Here’s a solution: just get started. The famous composer Leonard Bernstein said, “You can sit there, tense and worried, freezing the creative energies, or you can start writing something, perhaps something silly. It simply doesn’t matter what . . . In five or ten minutes the imagination will heat, the tightness will fade, and a certain spirit and rhythm will take over.”

I have found that to be true. You just have to get started. You just have to get moving and write something. Something, anything! Just put some words down. You have to plug in the machine before it’s going to produce anything.

After all, as Nora Roberts said, “You can fix anything but a blank page.” Even if what you write is pretty rough, you can always revise, update, and edit. But you can’t edit a blank page. So, get moving.

Daily Question: Are you willing to just start writing and let it be rough in order to get yourself moving?

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