History That Never Was

Image by andibrowning62 from Pixabay

Many writers who are not perfectionists in other aspects of their life suddenly seem to develop this trait when faced with an imperfect draft. They become certain that if their first draft isn’t beautiful, it’s not worth calling it finished, and they tinker with it ceaselessly.

I’m here to say: let it go.

Your first draft (and even subsequent drafts, prior to publication) doesn’t need to be perfect. It’s okay if there are parts you know you need to flesh out or rewrite or delete or whatever. But that doesn’t make it a BAD draft. Writing messily is a fine way to write, even if the result of that is a draft that needs a lot of work.

Because you know what? If you’ve got a messy draft, you’ve still got a DRAFT. And that means you’re much farther along in the process than you were before it was written. Messy drafts can be revised. Unwritten drafts can’t.

So finish the draft, set it aside, and come back to it later to turn it into the beautiful draft you’re dreaming of!

Tags: advice, drafts, imperfection, writing

This entry was posted by dawn.vogel on Monday, July 1st, 2024 at 6:00 am and is filed under Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.