Dan Harmon’s Writing Advice Changed My Approach To Writing.
“…When we consider it our job to do better than we can do, then you don’t do anything! Because you’re waiting to come up with something that you won’t come up with.” — Dan Harmon
Most writers are scared, plain and simple. Most people that want to be writers can’t write because they are paralyzed by the idea of failing at being a writer, that they won’t be able to write the Great American Novel they’ve fantasized about since they were young. They’ve grown up in a world that mystifies writing so when the time comes to write they freeze in front of the page and they never do.
I was one of those writers until recently and I owe moving past that to Dan Harmon, the writer and creator of “Community” and co-creator of “Rick and Morty.”
Specifically this video: “Dan Harmon on Writing/avoiding procrastination”
The video is about 7 minutes long, he talks a bit about how procrastination is just an artificial way to create the environment that you need in order to write but the real important advice comes in the latter half of the video.
“… It’s part of your process, you just have to wait until the last minute. No, you have to wait till the last minute if you want for it to need to happen in a way that doesn’t involve you changing your psychology. The other alternative is you can just start taking what you do less seriously…” — Dan Harmon
Before I heard that, writing used to be this heavy activity that would drain me every time I sat down because I wasn’t satisfied with anything I put on the page. I would punish myself for trying to write, it was an unhealthy relationship with my work that I placed on myself because I wanted to impress every person I once told I was going to be a writer. I was paralyzed.
If you embrace the idea that what you write will always suck, that the first time it exists on a piece of paper will never be as good as it’s fifth or seventh, a lot of the pressure to write evaporates and you will be able to write. You no longer have to be satisfied with the writing, you just have to be satisfied with the fact that it exists.
That sentiment is encompassed by the James Thurber quote:
“Don’t get it right. Get it written.”- James Thurber
Your work just needs to exist. It doesn’t need to be amazing or achieve some grand purpose. It just needs to be on a laptop or a piece of paper or carved in stone. All it matters is that it’s in the world now instead of in your head.
Once this idea of accepting mediocrity in exchanging for having actually done it sinks in, you’ll write. There’s no more fear of failure attached to writing, so you’ll just do it.
That inspires another question:
How do you write and have it be good?
Dan Harmon has the perfect answer for that.
“We’re all critics, we’re all so good at recognizing what’s shitty about something… but then we’re all so bad at making something. So just make something bad and then criticize it until it’s good.” — Dan Harmon
Make it exist. Criticize it. Fix it. Repeat until it’s good.
After adopting this ideology about writing, even if my pages are crap, I feel good about writing them. Because they exist and I have a red pen and I can fix it and rewrite it.
