Write Poorly

This struck such a chord with me, I had to share it. It's a poetry slam from the book Point of Retreat by Colleen Hoover. (Still not sure I'm using the word "slam" correctly.) Anyway, it's good. (As were the books.)

"Write poorly.
Suck.
Write awful.
Terribly.
Frightfully.
Don't care.
Turn off the inner editor.
Let yourself write.
Let it flow.
Let yourself fail.
Do something crazy.
Write fifty thousand words in the month of November.
I did it.
It was fun, it was insane, it was one thousand six hundred and sixty seven words a day.
It was possible
But, you have to turn off your inner critic.
Off completely.
Just write.
Quickly.
In bursts.
With joy.
If you can't write, run away for a few.
Come back.
Write again.
Writing is like anything else.
You won't get good at it immediately.
It's a craft you have to keep getting better.
You don't get to Julliard unless you practice.
If you want to get to Carengie Hall, practice, practice, practice.
...or give them a lot of money.
Like anything else, it takes ten thousand hours to get to mastery.
Just like Malcolm Gladwell says.
So write.
Fail.
Get your thoughts down.
Let it rest.
Let it marinate.
Then edit.
But don't edit as your type, that just slows down the brain.
Find a daily practice, for me it's blogging every day.
And it's fun.
The more you write, the easier it gets. The more it is a flow, the less a worry. It's not for school, it's not for a grade, it's just to get your thoughts out there.
You know they want to come out.
So keep at it. Make it a practice. And write poorly, write awfully, write with abandon and it may end up being
really
really
good."
~ Edmund Davis-Quinn