As a writer, inspiration comes and goes. There are days when creative juices are pumping hard through my veins and then there are days like today – days when my fingers freeze and my brain goes into total lockdown; days when the desire to write is far outweighed by the frustration of empty words. So instead of trying so hard, I will share something I learnt recently that I hope will shape the way I view my writing habits. Maybe you’ll find it useful in your own life too.
Over the weekend, I decided to watch “Set It Up” on Netflix. By no means is it a fantastic movie. Quite honestly, it was mostly cheesy and badly scripted like most romantic comedies but one scene really stood out to me (spoiler alert, don’t say I didn’t warn you). Harper, the main protagonist had just quit her job as the assistant of ESPN’s sports editor, Kirsten, to become a writer. Part of the reason why I watched the movie in the first place was because Kirsten is played by Lucy Liu, but I digress. Harper had always wanted to be a sports journalist but has not written anything in a year. With her new found freedom, she tries to write the best article of her career but is stuck with writer’s block and ends up eating typical American Chinese take-out off her living room floor. Her best friend returns home to find her under a blanket looking like a crazed woman and practically gives her the best pep talk of her life.
Of course your first draft is gonna be bad. It’s gonna be terrible. Then you know what you’re gonna do, Harper? You’re gonna back and you make it better. But you can’t make it better until you actually do it! You’re not a bad writer yet. You need to stop feeling sorry for yourself and just write something bad.
Then it hit me – just write something bad.
JUST. WRITE. SOMETHING. BAD.
Now here I am giving a badly written, and unplanned anecdote about one of the trashiest chick flicks I’ve watched in ages. So if you’re going through similar struggles as I am, please go and write one bad story because it might lead you to write many good ones.
And this applies to everything else in life, of course. In order to be good at something, you have to take a leap of faith and just start, even if it’s bad.
That’s my public service announcement.
Till next time!
x
