In Favor of Sloppy Writing

Keely Carney
Jul 21, 2017 · 3 min read

Breaking news: I’m going to be publishing sloppy writing. Lucky you, right?

That announcement wasn’t for your benefit. No writer ever needs to tell a reader that they’re publishing sloppy writing. You can tell that on your own.

I’m writing it because I need to be reminded that sloppy writing is okay.

I had gotten into the powerful habit of writing and publishing every day. I want to be like Glennon Doyle and that’s how she got her start: every morning, she wrote and edited from 4:30–6:30, before her family woke up. At the end of her two hours of writing time, she hit publish.

Then I started descending down the rabbit hole of writing advice (both from writers and non-writers) and second-guessed my strategy. Cheryl Strayed said writers shouldn’t be sloppy. We should work on mastering the craft. My boyfriend said I could hold back on hitting publish if the writing embarrassed me.

A critical piece of the advice was “even if you’re not publishing, keep writing.” But I found my writing devolving into drivel. I kept writing every day, but it became a second journal. I already write three pages freehand every morning; I don’t need to type a thousand words of stream-of-consciousness self-indulgence too. Trust me, my deepest, darkest innermost thoughts are actually quite boring when I’m just writing them down.

The thing is that when I was writing to publish, I was pushing myself to find solutions through writing. I would talk about something that happened in my life, but I would try to apply some alchemy to it. I wanted to end with a takeaway, a message about bigger principles we can all use to get better lives.

When I was writing to publish, I was writing in a way that transformed me. When I let go of the publishing piece, I was writing in a way that reinforced the same old thought patterns. Again. And again. And again.

Ain’t nobody got time for that.

So…I’m back. Don’t worry — I don’t expect anyone to have missed me. Sloppy writers don’t have audiences of raving fans. But sloppy writers have the opportunity to become better writers. To find their voices. To become less sloppy.

Why am I sharing this? After all, I try to write about mental health recovery and a lot of you aren’t writers. This isn’t relevant to you.

Right?

Wrong. The writing piece isn’t relevant, but the principle is. We all have to find what works for us, what gets us closer to being the kind of people we want to be, and pursue it.

Sometimes that will mean listening to other people’s advice, then politely declining.

We owe it to ourselves to find what actually works for us, not just feel bad because what should work for us doesn’t.

What actually works for me is publishing every day. I was getting insight after insight when I was doing it. Memories that I didn’t even realize I had were coming up. Painful memories became things I could write about and work through. Happy ones became opportunities to investigate what brought me joy and invite more of it into my life.

You might not have the same experience. Trying to write and publish might be the worst thing you could do for yourself.

But I bet there’s something you could do that would serve you.

Maybe it’s taking time each day to go for a walk. Maybe it’s taking time each day to rest. Maybe it’s spending more time alone. Maybe it’s spending more time with people.

There is no one solution that will work for all of us. But there are solutions that will work for each of us.

Our job is to find them and seize them.

I wish you luck on your journey.

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Keely Carney

Written by

I write about depression, life and life after depression: www.depression-free.org

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