Quiara Alegría Hudes: “Your Writing Is Never Going to Be Perfect”

It’s always going to be flawed — you have to live with those flaws

Wake Up and Write is an advice column from Moms Don’t Have Time to Write. Today, we have Quiara Alegría Hudes— the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of In the Heights and author of the debut memoir, My Broken Language— who shared writing advice on the podcast Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books, hosted by Zibby Owens.

“I think it’s really important to know why you’re in it, to have that compass to return to because no work that you write is ever going to be perfect.”

“It’s always going to be flawed. You have to live with those flaws. Some of your best work might not be seen that way by the public. Some of your more mediocre stuff might be really embraced by the public. It can be very confusing and disorienting. Plus, collaborations might fall apart, all that sort of stuff.

When you ask, ‘What am I doing and why does it matter?’ it really helps maintain some kind of emotional stability throughout.

I think the biggest piece of advice I have is, when you’re starting out, you have to write a lot. You have to get your stuff out there. Young writers can become addicted to feedback. It’s dangerous. You should be doing the hard work of figuring out, ‘What are the deficiencies? What are the strengths of this piece? Can I make it better tomorrow?’”

Listen to the episode:

https://zibbyowens.com/transcript/quiara-alegra-hudes-my-broken-language

Buy the book:

https://bookshop.org/books/my-broken-language-a-memoir/9780399590047