Post #1532670

Something I picked up from my local #writers group meeting the other night. This is advice I need to inscribe on my heart. (Paraphrased; I didn't record their exact wording.) We had guest speakers, awardwinning authors José Pablo Iriatre (they/them) and Elle E. Ire. Jose was talking about their ADHD, and the difficulty of writing when they have a mental vision of this perfect story they want to create but the first few sentences they write down are, in their words, "crap." I asked them how they push through this. "Allow yourself to write crap," they replied. "In my case, I tell myself: you've written good stories before, you've won awards for it, you know you can do a good job of this. You can't edit a blank page. And at some point, magic happens, and you realize you've come up with something good. "Authors who say 'this is my first book!', it's usually their fifth." They and Elle each wrote four or five novels before writing one that sold. They recommended an essay by Daniel José Older, titled "Writing Begins With Forgiveness." I found a copy of it at http://www.superphrenic.com/uploads/1/2/5/4/12545143/1._writing_begins_with_forgiveness_by_daniel_jose_older.pdf José continued, "You spend so much time feeling bad about your failures, that sitting down to write becomes an exercise in preparing yourself to feel bad. You've got to slog through it. And, finish your novels! If you keep giving up and starting over, then you'll get good at writing beginnings but not middles or endings."