Writing Through

Just as I wrote before about outlining, now I’m thinking about the idea of ‘writing fearlessly.’  I can’t remember who I heard the term from, but after the last bout of writing, which felt like crap to start with but ended fairly decent (I think), I know what it means. 

It means to just write.  Put words down.  They may be/will be crap.  Or brilliant.  Or just more and more words.  Every time I’ve sat down and looked at a scene and said "how the hell am I going to sort that one out?" I’ve managed to just start writing.  Then, of course, I’d delete the sentence I just wrote and rewrite it.  Maybe I’d leave that one, then do (and re-do) the next.  The third one, maybe I’ll keep that.  The fourth isn’t bad either.  The fifth sentence; woah nelly where did that dialogue come from?   Ugh.  Let’s rewrite that, but the sixth is actually pretty good.  And so on.

Anything can be fixed.  That’s what I tell myself, and I’m quite confident it can be.  Maybe not enough on this piece of work, but on the next, and the next, and the next.  Practice and persistence.

Writing fearlessly means pushing through to the end and pushing aside those doubts and the need to constantly make it better.  Finish first, improve after.

At least with the outline, I know where I’m going, so I don’t have to think about what is going to happen in a scene.  I only need to fill it out and make the scene happen.