Welcome to Wednesday, where today's topic is: Is it lame? Who the hell cares? Or how to write a dirty first draft and get the damn book done.
Probably the biggest roadblock to getting words out for me is worrying whether the words I'm typing are lame... stupid... WRONG... Well, ya know what? Who the hell cares? It's a first draft, for pitysakes. The words don't have to be awesome. Hell, they don't even have to be good. They just have to be words. Sure, they have to make some kind of sense, but the point here is...
EVERYTHING CAN BE FIXED IN EDITS...
Except a blank page. If there are no words to fix, then... well, duh... you can't fix them. The point of every first draft is to get the damn thing written.
Did you just write a sentence that would make even the kindest reader want to throw the book at the wall? No problem. No reader is going to see it yet.
Do your characters sound wooden? Easy peasy. Fix it later.
Did you use... :gasp: the wrong word? Have typos? Misspell something? Forget a comma? Use too many commas? All of that can be fixed with your handy dandy EDIT ROUNDS.
No matter what you've written that you think sucks, it can be fixed. The only thing that can't be fixed is... Well, actually there is a fix for a blank page. It's... wait for it...
WRITING!
Set your big ass, your narrow ass, your flat ass, or your bubble butt down. Hell, I didn't used to have a butt at all, and I could've slapped that down, too. Now put your fingers on the keys (or your lips to the microphone, for those using a speech to text program) and write the damn story.
So what if it's lame? So what if you don't think anyone will ever like it? So what if you don't like it right now? It's your story. Write it. Then fix it so you do love it. (Psst... there's not much you can do to insure anyone else likes it, but they sure as hell won't like it if you don't write it. Eh?)
And yes, when I wrote this last night, I was thinking that what I am writing is LAME. Ultra-lame. Lamey McLamerson from Lameville, Lame-abama. So what? My ass was in the chair and I got to work writing. It'll get unlame later. And I'll come back to fix this lame part when I finish.
Now, get out there and slap down some new words! Go, go, go, go!
Update: After I wrote this and scheduled it, I laid down more words and ended up with a total of 1561 mostly unlame words. See? You've gotta push past the lame to get to the good.
