It's Okay When Your First Effort Fails

It’s OK for This First Draft to Be Sucky!

I’m ready to walk away from what I’m writing. And I will because I have to think a bit more before I put more words down. Right now, they don’t say what I want to say. My urge is to abandon these words and delete—or at least close—the file and be done. Maybe I’ll write another day, another time.

But I’m trying to encourage myself and not get caught up in the initial sucki-ness of what I’m writing. I know today’s writing is awful, but I also know I want to continue to write; therefore, I reminded myself that “It’s okay for this first draft to be sucky!” And I typed that at the top of the page. When I return from another cup of coffee, those words will encourage me to keep going rather than abandon all hope ye who type here.

It’s the rare person who excels the first time they try something. It is the rare person who excels every time they do something they think they have already mastered.

First tries might not be the best tries. We have to remind ourselves it really is okay for most of them to be sucky. The effort and the will to continue are not sucky. That effort can be harnessed to keep going and make something that is sucky into something that is valuable.

That sucky writing? I haven’t returned to it, yet. But I will because I think it might turn into something valuable.