My struggle has been on perfectionism, always trying to get it right the first time. Try different approaches, and find out what works for you. It’s normal to take awhile. Required fields are marked *. Perhaps you find excuses and do your household chores first. I’m not saying that all writers hate all writing all the time, or that writers are mentally and/or emotionally challenged individuals who compulsively indulge in self-destructive behavior just for kicks (though that has been said before, unfortunately, since it’s such a gross misinterpretation of authorial behavior). That’s so true: “Why not just let it out and clean it up later?”, Happy writing, Judith! Interesting to see how my writing developed over the year. To transform your shitty first draft, you go through a similar process. I feel comfortable writing in Word – I’m sure other tools are superior in many ways, but my familiarity with Word, built up over years of use, means I just find it much easier to use. When I learned to embrace shitty first drafts, I started to trust my writing process. They start to procrastinate and end up writing their assignment two hours before the deadline. I learned to embrace the gruesome metamorphosis required during the revision process. Let's be honest: how do you feel about having to write? Whereas with Pages it has pretty much been cut & paste and voila it’s there! Good writing isn’t about the quality of your first draft. . By the mid-80s, computer manufacturers stopped offering multiple possible operating systems and simply relied on DOS. But when it works, keep it going. I have also played with my templates in wix (thinking of mov just ng my blog there) it works beautifully there as well. So, I narrowed down the scope of my article and scrapped the unwieldy parts. Writing involves comparison, favorable or not, to more seasoned authors engendering insecurities about how much better or faster a favored scribbler might have treated the novice’s topic. Made me mad. Your voice is damped out by all the interruptions, changes, and hesitations between the consciousness and the page. I would be lost without it, and I can export to Pages or LibreOffice if I need a MSW -compatible document. Synonyms. quantity is more important than the quality of your writing, The 5-step revision process to edit rough drafts, 17 blog writing prompts to kickstart your creativity, http://faculty.buffalostate.edu/wahlstrl/eng309/Freewriting.pdf, Write about what you know so you can write faster, Don’t spend time on experimentation—creativity can slow you down. But even when I freewrite, I still have some rough ideas of things I want to cover, but I haven’t quite figured out how my ideas are going to work in the draft. Hello my name is Claudia and I’m a MS Word addict. I understand everything you said here, but for me, it’s just so tough to NOT follow a process. Hi Henneke – Thank you for unlocking what has plagued me for ages. It took me some practice, but I now find it a lot easier to get started. But did you know how gruesome this process is? I’ve not heard it described like that before. Aha- just what I was looking for: checking out all the alternatives is the distraction I need to keep me from actually doing any writing today. GIVEAWAY: Will is generously giving away a Kindle copy of his latest ebook, Writing for the Web, to the person who leaves his favourite comment. Greatest country ever? You could win a free Kindle copy of his latest ebook, Writing for the Web. Henneke, I like to get into my writer trance for the first draft. We love Evernote . And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. I thing you can try that may help you with organizing your manuscripts, if you haven’t done so already, is to learn how to use the Headings styles in MS Word to break up your manuscript into manageable chunks. For my research papers I must use APA or MLA and of course Riverpoint Writer is excellent for those. Much easier to use than the previous version! Sometimes more like flypaper. Corey Eridon, Senior Blog Editor at HubSpot, on Writing When You Hate Writing "I hated writing -- and still hate writing -- when I feel like I have to put on an affected persona. Plain text editors let you compose in plain, unformatted text. Thank you for pointing that out. Be bold: quit word processing altogether. To give myself permission to write shitty first drafts. Horseback riding for seniors? Reading this article made me less of a noob. I started with a Kaypro also – bought it from a dealer who was clearing his inventory since he knew CP/M was going out. I hope you are doing good! I worked with Scrivener for a while and found it difficult to master. Learn more about books and courses, I never saw myself as a writer, but in my early forties, I learned how to write and discovered the joy of writing. It’s not about setting your margins or choosing fonts or italicizing phrases. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. But that’s hard! It’s not always about how well you do what you do; I think it’s also about how well you manage to keep your head held high even when you’re constantly tripping. (http://www.amazon.com/Writing-For-The-Web-ebook/dp/B00ELAG856). So during your composition process, skip the apps that want you to make stylistic decisions. Pen and paper is great for composition. A magical process. The beauty of not knowing the journey, what would happen, and where I would end up made it a fascinating writing experience of growth, learning and personal development. I don’t put any pressure on myself. It is my turn now, and I have polished off those archaic ideas and thoughts and expanded my universe in every way but one. Thank you for your lovely comment, Brenda. If you know you want to write and you can write but then you don't want to put the effort in to finishing your first chapter it's easy to say "oh well, I'm shit, it's shit, no point". I now use google docs, text editor, and word but outta the blue have found word won’t let me edit or deleat without out signing in to an account. Instead, we prod, poke and stir until we discover what we really think and want to write. A caterpillar digests itself, destroying all its tissues before turning into a butterfly. I just need to get the idea out, and then work on removing whats wrong with it. How do you start writing? Evernote is great for idea capturing and notes, but I’ve never been a fan of using it for composition. How the computer world has changed. Happy writing! I don’t have anything against other programs. Being embarrassed by your work isn't hating writing, it's hating yourself, Maybe you are also using your low self esteem as a way to be lazy. I’ll never buy another computer with anything from Microsoft in it. Here is how Microsoft programs became the standard. so, i realized that if i start commenting without thinking very much about how best to put it, i flow freely, and i produce rich content. Step back from your writing. Eventually I order everything and prune the tree and flesh it out a bit. As Will points out, writing is the main thing, so eliminating the fluff would be a good thing. It’s great for writing, and for managing all my articles. Many people hate to write, because they’re not particularly good at it. It gives so much control to the writer. Misery loves company? It includes advice on writing queries and on many other topics. I have a challenging aspect to my life, and wanted to see where 365 days would take me. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast, Press J to jump to the feed. No longer simply a graduate degree (Master of Social Work) it is now a new frontier of addicition recovery and exploration of composition tools:-) I will accept the challenge to break from my comfort zone and explore your suggestions with my new M-S-W alternative approach: Mining-Smoother-Wordsmithing!! And thank you for stopping by . And yes, there will remain people who have nary an interest in writing … We often fear the worst. And also the opposite: the paragraph I like best while writing my first draft, often gets scrapped when rewriting. Well, now I know. It also makes writing dead. You can see his personal site at willmoyer.com and find him on Twitter where he tweets about web design, writing, and heterodox political philosophies. In other words, most of the time, writing feels a bit like working up the courage to share the contents of your heart with the crush of your life who has barely ever noticed you, or, I don’t know, showing up to middle school naked. It’s great for composing on a Mac. And I agree. We all go through this. it’s kind of overkill effect. It totally is, I'm very good at math and I hate it. The butterfly metaphor just warms my heart and makes an accurate representation of not only the writing process but most processes in general. Maybe my brain is wired differently. Dear evil genie who keeps luring me back to Word. Contact | Comment Policy | Privacy Statement | Terms and Conditions | Copyright © 2020 Enchanting Marketing Ltd. Not only have I become a writer, but I have written an unscripted book. I appreciate it. However, their contributions to the open source community in the development area is very interesting and I believe has caught many people by surprise. In the early days, that, too, was a key part of their success: sell everywhere at a reasonable price, lock in your customers and your customer’s customers and suppliers and then turn the ratchet. And I use it on my iOS devices too. No seperation of these processes. You may just have to trust me on this one for now, but soon you should find that being able to express your thoughts clearly in writing can produce an enormous sense of delight and satisfaction. To explore and dig deeper. Use him when editing to perfect your work. You have inspired me. Papers to write, but I hate writing papers. Instead, use a plain text editor. Will have to give the others listed a try, once NaNoWriMo is over…. My self-esteem is an issue I have to contend with frequently, yeah. https://www.thoughtco.com/the-write-attitude-and-your-writing-goals-1689648 I hate staring at a blank sheet. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. I don’t write in chunks, like Scrivener. What if you’re unable to turn your crappy draft into decent content? Get up to speed quickly and learn how to make the most of Scrivener with this course. I would definitely be interested, Alexis! I don’t mind if people say something badly–but they have to be trying to say something important or meaningful. Thanks for such a write, The comments and your replies are super great as well… I literally read every comment herein, and sure enough am coming back for more…. At that time, WordPerfect was the standard word processor, and many of my friends thought me crazy for choosing the upstart Word. Another Evernote user here! And you’re still stuck looking at a bloated interface built for formatting, not composing. Thank you for stopping by, Ayesha. Yes, retail products are still sold as retail items. But when you have to write quickly every day, you train yourself to get it right the first time. And you’re right. I think my training as a journalist has made me write in a different way. How do you feel about Microsoft Word? More importantly, don't turn a gift into a burden by treating your blessings as a liability. Its ubiquity is one of the main things that keep other writers from branching out and finding tools that better suit them. That is where he made his money. I have a Pages installed and the more I learn, the more it has been growing on me. They suffer a similar problem to my writing though, which is that every attempt at one usually fizzles out due to frustration. Unlike others who embraced the open source model, Microsoft has always preferred to create closed, proprietary products in an attempt to lock in their customers. To start, you might try another, better word processor. I’ve always thought it sad we disparage that first work, as if anyone is capable of writing everything without editing. So there’s that (which I’ve written about extensively already), but I think I’m ready to expand on that theory. In the last year MS has open sourced large portions of their development code. "Yes," is the simple answer. I like it, too! People who says they love writing and then writes well, gosh I get so jealous. Thank you very much. I think we all need a new creative injection from time to time, to get out a rut and explore new writing territory. I do think a program in which I ONLY write might be a psychologically decent move, though – If I could train my brain to settle into writing mode as soon as I opened a certain program, I think I would have it made. And those was not available at that time from other companies, which could compete with IBM. It seems like it’s upset at least one reader who unsubscribed due to crass language. Process of not you have to let your soul bleed out in your words and do some serious editing afterwards. Moreover, you must come into the slogosphere with your most heightened sensitivities tuned to their highest frequencies, and you must keep your heart open and either leave your assumptions and baggage at the door or find a way to authentically shape them into something that doesn’t resemble the tear-and-ink-stained rant of a diary you kept under your bed when you were fourteen. Rule #3 for writing a good article: keep it short and sweet. Your email sat patiently in my inbox while I finished off other business. Painfully honest. An idea may hit me that needs to be in a totally different chapter from the one I’m writing and then I’m working through page breaks, scrolling through chapters, etc. The problem with Open/LibreOffice is that it is a MS clone. That could seriously be part of my problem. Your articles are ever so helpful. When you start, you don’t have to write something that’s “good enough;” you can make it “good enough” later. Ensure: Here’s What They Each Mean and When to Use Them, Tools, ebooks and courses, all vetted by our team, If you’re committed to writing on your smartphone, Brett Terpstra’s. here is mine – i comment a lot on facebook, and i enjoy it very much. At the time, most computers were sold without an operating system. When upgrading feels like downgrading, that’s not good. That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking with it , You can join the enchanting party any time – it’s never too late . Oh well, I can’t please everyone …, And yes, you’re absolutely right… “writing that first draft is simply the process of creating something that you can then edit to your heart’s content?” It’s something I force myself to do as quickly as possible (preferably in the morning when I still feel quite groggy, so my inner critic is still asleep ), Funny, Henneke. I’m just starting to write and I have too many doubts writing that first draft. Now check your email to confirm your subscription. It doesn't appear in any feeds, and anyone with a direct link to it will see a message like this one. It’s good to step off the treadmill and try some different ideas now and then. Too bloated. I have had poor first drafts turn into good material. If you know you want to write and you can write but then you don't want to put the effort in to finishing your first chapter it's easy to say "oh well, I'm shit, it's shit, no point". No, you’re not a newbie. I have an iPad, but find it annoying for much writing as the “keyboard” can’t be used as a real one because I can’t rest my fingers on it and it’s too small and you have to switch screens for too many symbols. Exceptionally well written post, Henneke. Good article but it doesn’t mention the chief pull of MSW – autocorrect. An insurmountable task. Isn’t it fascinating how we all appreciate different aspects of writing? When I write I do not always write in a straight line. Well, I’m here to tell you there’s a way out. Oh, and once I dumped the entire suite, mu computer was running a lot faster. Thanks for helping to expand my creative boundaries. But I do like the idea of the shitty first drafts. I’m attaining my dream. Thanks! I don't really have much tangible advice for you, except some sense of comfort perhaps that genius' share common problems. I came across the word “discovery draft” in Donald Murray’s book. In your natural way of producing words there is a sound, a texture, a rhythm–a voice–which is the main source of power in your writing. I even created the template for my features in it. But I also used it for coding, writing HTML and CSS. There’s a trade off – the more meaningful something is, the easier it is to accept “bad” writing. I don’t know how it works, but this voice is the force that will make a reader listen to you.”. Because DOS was far and away the best operating system for the money (note that qualification), Microsoft had infinite resources to spend on developing new programs. Sorry, this post was deleted by the person who originally posted it. But it also doesn’t allow ANY formatting, so if I want something in italics, I’m out of luck. This leads to cookies and lots bull I don’t trust. i would lose time and interest – all at the same time. What’s the most valuable point for your readers? My first draft was getting unwieldy, and the most interesting part was the 2-step process for adding credibility.

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