On a morning not dissimilar to this one many years ago, I sat as a bored communications student actively avoiding my final essay for the semester. The thought of writing 5000 words on romantic patterns found in 1920’s French Cinema was, at the time, less than thrilling (and actually now that I think about it still sounds particularly unappealing… Huh.) Essays aside, back in those days the notion of having to put pen-to-paper in any way was enough to ruin my mood. Probably due to years of schooling wherein I was taught that unless every thought I wrote had a scholarly reference my points were either irrelevant or plagiarised but hey, who’s to say.

Fast forward many moons and thousands of sentences — my sentiment towards the written word couldn’t differ more. Through a series of happy coincidences, moments of inspiration, and perhaps a little fate, I’ve found myself with a passion for stories that I hope never fades. Unsurprisingly I can’t be sure of the precise moment when the change occurred, but conveniently I can pinpoint the day it all began. These are a few things I realised back then that have had an immeasurable impact on what I do today. So here we go.

Don’t you dare, for even one second, overthink it.

I’m not exaggerating when I say I spent about 8 hours one night writing my first non-education related post. It was a 200 word album review that upon reflection was gloriously average, but we’ve all got to start somewhere, right? I spent such a long time getting myself in a fuss about how to say things the ‘right’ way that I ended up with an entirely vanilla piece that has since been lost to the wonders of the world-wide-inter-webs. What I should have been writing was what I wanted to say, rather than what I thought people wanted to read. Overthinking every second word not only wastes time, but it also cripples creativity — sometimes with a devastating effect.

Fake it until you break it.

When I was crafting the aforementioned album review, a good friend of mine told me to just pretend I knew what I was doing, so I did. The rest is history — a history overflowing with contentious grammatical errors, awkward spelling mistakes and sort-of-considered ideas that I’m (mostly) proud of. Break through the thought in your mind that the first thing you write has to be impeccable, because to be quite frank it doesn’t. In fact, if it isn’t an earth-shattering, mind-blowing, revolutionary collection of words — GREAT. There’s still work to be done.

Practice makes better, not perfect.

When was the last time you read a perfect book? How about a perfect blog post, or even the perfect tweet? Perfection in words is as subjective as anything and is pretty much impossible. Unless you’re Dr. Seuss and the literature you’re responsible for is ‘Oh The Places You’ll Go’, but even then… Practice will forever push you in the right direction and as long as you’re headed for a good place, there’s nothing to be worried about. Embrace the journey and revel in the times you can look back on past work and see growth. Chances are, you’ll never discover the formula for a perfect piece of writing, but doesn’t that make it all the more exciting?

Which brings me to my concluding point; stay excited. It’s no secret that in all things creative, passion is a key ingredient for success and while there’s sadly no formula for passion, decisions you make along the way will determine your attitude towards what you’re doing. As much as humanly possible, choose to be fascinated by your subject matter, enthralled by the story you’re telling and thrilled by every little goal you achieve along the way. Passion follows patience and perseverance, and I think it’s as simple as that. That’s not to say you won’t have moments where all hope is lost, (in fact you definitely will,) but it’s the rise and fall that makes for an interesting adventure.

Good writing is a brave and bold and wild expression of oneself — do it often and you’ll do it well. Case and point.