One thing I try to tell my students while I’m teaching writing — whether they are learning to write a great paragraph, essay, or story — is that the first draft needs to be messy. The messier the better. I’m talking no punctuation, spelling errors, and just a big mess. Mess = exactly what you’re supposed to do.
Why? Because you have to write the crap before you can write the good stuff which leads to the great stuff that you wanted to write in the first place.
But Ira Glass says it better here in this video.
One day I’ll learn to be succinct.
Best writing advice of the day. You’re welcome.
Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo.
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Published by Icess Fernandez Rojas
Icess is a writer, professor, and blogger. She is a graduate of Goddard College's MFA program. Her work has been published in Rabble Lit, Minerva Rising Literary Journal, and the Feminine Collective's anthology Notes from Humanity. Her nonfiction has appeared in Dear Hope, NBCNews.com, HuffPost and the Guardian. She is a recipient of the Owl of Minerva Award, a VONA/Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation alum, and is also a Kimbilio Fellow. She's currently working on her first novel.
View all posts by Icess Fernandez Rojas
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