Monday, June 11, 2012

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

5 comments:

  1. I LOVED those books! After reading them, I feel a strong desire to go see a poetry slam. Now I have to find one...

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  2. I wrote that poem.

    Let me know where you live and I can see if there is a slam nearby. All you really have to do is look for a nearby city and look up poetry slam for that city. That's how I found one for Colleen in Dallas.

    Edmund

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  3. Thanks for posting my poem. I really appreciate it. Put a big smile on my face. Edmund.

    Here is the original blogpost of the poem.

    http://ed2dq.com/2012/01/05/write-poorly/

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  4. Stephanie HarshJune 11, 2012

    You just put a huge smile on my face! I love that I get to put a real, live person to the poem. Thank you! (For the poem and the comment.)

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  5. 50,000 words in November Stephanie?
    Sound familiar?
    Get geared up for NaNoWriMo- it's exhilarating.
    Do it.

    ReplyDelete