This one Tuesday last month I actually finished a scene I'd been stuck on for almost 6 weeks

I've been tinkering with this fantasy short story since February and the middle section was just dead weight. Every time I sat down I'd rewrite the same three paragraphs and then close the document. Then last Tuesday I forced myself to just write garbage for 15 minutes with no editing. I typed out this clunky scene where my main character gets lost in a foggy market and accidentally buys a cursed apple from a vendor who doesn't speak her language. It was messy but suddenly the whole story had a direction again. I ended up finishing a full 2,000 word draft by Thursday night. Has anyone else had that moment where breaking your own rules about quality actually unlocked something?

2 comments

2 Comments

stellat8714d ago

oh come on, garbage writing is just setting yourself up for more garbage later. i spent three years on my first novel doing exactly that, thinking i could fix it in edits, and ended up with a 400 page mess that took another year to unscrew. you might have stumbled into a good scene by accident but usually that "just write anything" approach trains your brain to accept mediocrity. the whole point of being stuck is that your subconscious knows something is wrong with the direction you're going, and forcing it out just masks the real problem. i'd rather stare at a blank page for three hours than type out 15 minutes of junk that i'll just have to rewrite anyway.

cole_mitchell813d ago

Why do you think staring at a blank page is better than writing junk you can actually learn from?