Bad vs. Nonexistent

DAY 15

Word Count: 9507

Sentence of the Day: Comfrey and mugwort lay heavy in the air, the words on Emily's tongue even thicker.

Monday morning it's hard enough to get my eyelids to cooperate, and let me tell you, squint writing makes for a lot of typos. Even worse, I've got the angst of not having written over the weekend. All this anxious fatigue adds up to a steaming pile of "Ack! I can't do this!"

It's days like this I look to the sage advice of other authors who've been there and not only bought the tee-shirt but already donated it to Goodwill. So this morning I'm leaning against the solid post of author Jennifer Egan's sage advice, permitting me to write badly...

[Be] willing to write really badly. It won't hurt you to do that. I think there is this fear of writing badly, something primal about it, like: "This bad stuff is coming out of me…" Forget it! Let it float away and the good stuff follows. For me, the bad beginning is just something to build on. It's no big deal. You have to give yourself permission to do that because you can't expect to write regularly and always write well. That's when people get into the habit of waiting for the good moments, and that is where I think writer's block comes from. Like: It's not happening. Well, maybe good writing isn't happening, but let some bad writing happen... When I was writing "The Keep," my writing was so terrible. It was God-awful. My working title for that first draft was, A Short Bad Novel. I thought: "How can I disappoint?"

Today my writing might be bad, but hey...isn't that better than saying my writing is nonexistent?