It wasn’t until I started telling myself to just write SOMETHING, no matter how bad it was, no matter how far away from what I was envisioning, that I started actually making progress.
Amen to that. There was a saying we threw around at VP: you can't edit the blank page.
I think this is a problem a lot of beginning writers have--actually getting stuff down, and finishing their work. This is why I think NaNoWriMo is so important at a certain point in the learning process, as it teaches you to write (almost) every day, and to just put words down, even if they're the wrong ones. Other challenges (like your 31 plays) or writing prompts are valuable for similar reasons.
That said, now that I feel I can reliably finish stuff, I do allow myself some more leeway to edit as I write. I re-read my work from time to time, and fix obvious things--wording, inconsistencies, etc. But if I'm doing a wordcount-based challenge, something like Camp NaNo, like I am this month, I do temporarily suspend that urge.
But yeah. Drafting is picking out the stone; revising is chiseling away everything that isn't the statue.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
zaluzianskya and ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
skylark_photos
no subject
Date: 2014-07-15 08:08 pm (UTC)Amen to that. There was a saying we threw around at VP: you can't edit the blank page.
I think this is a problem a lot of beginning writers have--actually getting stuff down, and finishing their work. This is why I think NaNoWriMo is so important at a certain point in the learning process, as it teaches you to write (almost) every day, and to just put words down, even if they're the wrong ones. Other challenges (like your 31 plays) or writing prompts are valuable for similar reasons.
That said, now that I feel I can reliably finish stuff, I do allow myself some more leeway to edit as I write. I re-read my work from time to time, and fix obvious things--wording, inconsistencies, etc. But if I'm doing a wordcount-based challenge, something like Camp NaNo, like I am this month, I do temporarily suspend that urge.
But yeah. Drafting is picking out the stone; revising is chiseling away everything that isn't the statue.