Kelford Labs Daily: Realistic writing doubt
On writing bad first drafts.
“Experienced writers don't go into their first draft expecting perfection. They understand it's going to be messy, and often not that good.
…
A touch of realistic doubt keeps us on track and makes it more likely that we will persist.”
— Steve Magness, Do Hard Things
Virtually every professional writer says the same thing: The first draft of anything is garbage.
But that’s a good thing. Because it means you don’t have to stress over perfection, you can just write a bad first draft, study it, and then fix it.
So the secret is to writing a LinkedIn post, copy for your homepage, advertisements, brochures—or anything else—is to keep writing all the way to the end, without aiming for perfection.
In fact, you want a “touch of realistic doubt,” so you don’t expect it to be anything other than a bad first draft.
That’s what will keep you writing—keep you on track and consistent—instead of giving up when the words aren’t working as well as you’d like them to.
Because once you have a bad first draft, you can review, edit, finesse, and polish until it’s as perfect as you need it to be.
