I am not a good writer—and I never will be

Photo by Dmitry Ratushny on Unsplash

I am not a good writer.

Plenty of writers think that of themselves I know, but for me it’s true.

Perhaps there should be quotation marks around good, but I’ll stick to my guns here:

I am not a good writer, and I never will be.

Okay, so blanket statement out of the way, what the ever-loving fuck do I actually mean by that?

There are hundreds if not thousands of unspoken rules surrounding the writing process. Even more surrounding the publishing process.

And I honestly couldn’t give a crap about any of them.

The ones I know about, I break gleefully. There are probably dozens more I break without knowing.

Here are just a few examples of Things I Do Wrong when writing:

I don’t obsess over single sentences, polishing and polishing until it’s perfect and has no resemblance to what I originally wrote.

I don’t write fifteen drafts of my work before I deem it ready for the outside world, and I certainly don’t spend most of my time rewriting what I’ve already written.

I don’t have an editor, and I don’t edit my work in the traditional sense.