DON'T BE AFRAID TO WRITE A BAD BOOK

Anonymous asked...

Whenever I sit down to write, I'm overwhelmed by the ideas in my head; I'm constantly distracted. I can't figure out which story to write, and I keep asking myself: What if I'm working on something that's going to go nowhere? What if I'm choosing the wrong idea? So I'd love to know: How do you know, when you sit down to write a book, that the concept you choose is going to pay off? How do you know it's going to be the right thing to focus on? I hope this question makes sense.

i really sympathize with this feeling. and i understand your need to get it right on the very first try -- i really, really do. but here's the problem: writing a novel is difficult enough without the added (stressful!) expectation of it needing to be The Next Big Thing. we can't manufacture that kind of success.

that's why you have to allow yourself the luxury of writing for the sake of writing -- writing because you love to do it, because you're having fun with your characters, because you lie awake at night thinking about what might happen to them while you're gone. because ultimately, published or unpublished, every single manuscript you write will be invaluable to your efforts. 

every single story you write will help you to hone your craft.

you can't be afraid of your own creative efforts. don't fear failure. don't be afraid of being the person who needed to write a ton of crappy manuscripts and had to burn through a few agents before landing a book deal. because i'm going to tell you a secret? regardless of how it might seem in and around the blogging world and twitterfeeds and facebook posts and the ever-lovely publishers marketplace, the majority of us (read: the vast, vast majority of us) did not sell the very first thing our eager fingers ever created. many of us had to write not 1, but 2, 3, 15 manuscripts before figuring out what worked. a debut novel just means it's the first novel an author has ever published -- not the first they've ever written.

and that's okay.

in fact, if you screw things up it just means you're perfectly normal. 

so take a risk. be open to writing a book that will undoubtedly embarrass you in a few years. go nuts with the adverbs and scatter plot holes everywhere and make your characters say things like i know we just met, but do you believe in destiny? and then he kissed my mouth and i breathed on his face and hugged him goodnight romantically. really. go ahead and fall in love with your hero for no reason except that he is the hero and, well, you made him, so there's obviously no need to flesh out his character. dispense with the motivations and the proper pacing and give your protag a crazy name and a plethora of ridiculous backstories. have every near-catastrophic event solved by coincidence and magical powers that show up only when it's most convenient, and then kill everyone off at the end because it's the only way you know how to finish the book. write the story that's really nothing more than a thinly-veiled effort at fictionalizing what otherwise would've been your autobiography. 

really.

but whatever you do, don't be afraid. never be afraid of writing the wrong thing. because in the end, all of it will help you learn. all of it will help you grow as a writer. so choose whichever story you want; choose all of them if you prefer. but don't ever sabotage yourself by getting stuck in analysis paralysis. don't freak yourself out. don't think you're the only one who's ever had this problem and don't feel like you'll never be able to move past it.

the words get easier the moment you stop fearing them.

we've all been there.
i know you'll get through it, too. 

<3