You feel great. You have a topic you want to write about and you do what any writer does, you start writing. Hours pass and you are still on the first couple of paragraphs that seem more like a collage of standalone topics that were haphazardly coupled together. You ask your editor (your roommate) for his or her advice on what you have so far. Halfway into your friend’s sentence you get the message. This passage sucks.
Good writers prosecute themselves.
Most writers inevitably become their own worst critics. The more you write, the more you expect from your creations, and this is where good writers run the risk of turning into self-defeating Shakespeares. You become so judgmental of your own material that you cannot release a thing.
Even Shakespeare has unreleased work.
If every writer released all his or her work we would have few great writers and a lot of mediocrity. It is absolutely normal and healthy to not release all your work if it does not fit the criteria for the medium it was intended for. Which brings us to rule número uno, stop being so hard on yourself.
Take a deep breath and do not delete.
I repeat, do not delete your work. If you get into the habit of deleting your work you are destroying a wealth of material to go back to, to learn from, or to use in a more appropriate medium. Deleting your work is wasting time spent. Saving it however, allocates the time spent, to time saved in the future.
What to do with stored material
Create a notebook of all the material you deemed unsuccessful and peak through it periodically to see if what did not work then, works now. As writers, we evolve with each post, passage, and critique. Maybe today you possess the skills to turn yesterday’s mediocrity into something spectacular.
Brandon Yawa, over and out
Writing can be absolutely frustrating, but you did an excellent job of twisting defeat into future success. Thanks for the inspiration.
No problem, I’m glad I could help.
Wow I must confess, you make some very trenchant points.
An answer from an expert! Thanks for contribuintg.
THX that’s a great anwser!
Nice post, Brandon! I’ve often gone back to something I wrote and discarded a few years ago, and found that either it was better than I remembered, or that with what I’ve learned in the intervening years I can now make it work. Even when something is really not publishable, it’s still not wasted as long as I’ve learned something from doing it.
Exactly. As long as we keep evolving as artist, there is no such thing as wasted material.
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