Reminder to Self

As I sit here, sludging my way through a new story and hating the words that are being extruded, I have to keep reminding myself of first principles.

The main one is that first drafts are brain-vomit. They are meant to suck. They are where you throw everything at the proverbial wall and hope something sticks – it’s a universal truth that poo tends to stick!

The big thing is to turn off the inner editor/critic. Finish the damned first draft – get the ugly words on the page first, then edit on the next passes. That’s what editing’s for – it’s the plastic surgery phase of writing, the stage when literary wrinkles are botoxed, prosaic tummies tucked, and metaphorical boobs lifted and firmed.

And so, I made up this little diagram to help remind me that first drafts are ugly, primeval brain-vomit and that they’re meant to be that way.

And now, back to the wordy mess-making.