Your {Signed} Permission Slip to Write Badly
Friend, I’m giving you permission.
Permission to write BADLY.
Permission to be terrible, awful, no-good, embarrassing.
I give you permission to SUCK at your writing.
I give you permission to write something that is:
Crappy- Terrible
- Awful
- Sucky
- Tacky
- Cringe-worthy
- Purple prose
- Pedantic
- Hyperbole
- Appalling
- Redundant
- Dreadful
- Horrendous
- Drivel
- Deplorable
- Ghastly
- Juvenile
- Shitty
- Verbose
- Direction-lessYou have PERMISSION to write badly. Just keep writing! #amwriting Click To Tweet
- Off topic
- Cliché
Go for it. Get it all out. Write like a love-struck, self-important, overindulgent teenager who has just discovered a thesaurus.
Write in crayon.
Write in lipstick.
Write with noodles and a chopstick.
Throw out all the “rules” about good writing and put words on paper. Let them sing you to like water pouring over pebbles in a stream.
WRITE.
Fall back in love with language. With rhythm. With poetry. Feel the shape of the words in your mouth as you whisper them onto the page. Sink into the feeling of a pen gliding across paper; of the gentle click of fingers striking keys as words appear in sentences, lines, paragraphs on the screen.
Fall in love with language. Feel the shape of the words in your mouth as you whisper them onto the page. Click To Tweet
WRITE.
What I do NOT give you permission to do is…
Slack off. Not honor your craft, your calling, your MESSAGE. I don’t give you permission to be a wanna be who TALKS about writing but who doesn’t write.
Your writing should NOT be perfect in the first draft. If it is… there’s something wrong. Not with the writing, but with you – because you’re overly in love with your words, your ideas, the commas.
Write imperfectly.
Write BADLY.
But write.
Every day. Write.
Write as if your life depends on it.
Because you have a message to share. And there IS a life that depends on that message. Get it OUT of you, onto the page (where it can be edited, and molded, and shaped into something that ISN’T crap).
Write it so it sets your brain free.
But write.
P.S. But please don’t PUBLISH drivel! I give you permission to WRITE badly; not publish bad writing. Write it. Write it. Write it. Then get help to edit and polish it until it’s gorgeous!
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