Confidence Writing
A Journalist’s Diary
Balance — in life and writing — makes day-to-day operations as a human being easier. A recent writing session, paired with inspirational and educational readings, made me ponder two connected parts of the writing process that determine balance — the quality of one’s writing and the ability to feel confident about it.
The meaning of quality or why “good” requires “bad”
I first wrote about finding balance (and confidence) in writing a month ago. The last writing post continued that theme with a look at confidence and the building blocks for my writing.
Shortly after finishing that post, I continued working on my short stories.
Technical glitches derailed that project for a few weeks (you can read about those glitches in the last writing post linked above or in my cost-benefit analysis).
Before I feel ready to start writing the first story, I need to fill a few gaps I can spot in my timeline and sketches of characters, places, and events.
Writing prompts are my way to fill those gaps. I could also call those free writing sessions or time to explore my thoughts and ideas without expectations.
The list item on my task list for that session was two short words, nothing else. It’s a location name.
But I didn’t write about the location, didn’t build a world, or set the stage, as one might expect.
I wrote in bursts for an hour. A sentence here, a paragraph there, and totaled a little over one A4 page in my narrowly lined notebook. That’s not terribly much, but it’s also more than nothing.
I couldn’t shake my disappointment about what I was managing to add to that page — neither while I was writing nor after I had ended.
I wanted to develop the backstory, the characters, the events, and the places of my stories. I ended the session with the sensation that this was bad writing, really awful compositions that wouldn’t lead me anywhere.
That disappointed sensation of failure didn’t last long because I remembered and realized two lessons.
Good writing requires bad writing first. Every snippet of writing expertise I’ve ever come across includes that reassuring mantra in one form or another, be it Anne Lamotte’s “shitty first drafts” in Bird by Bird or Roy-Peter Clark’s admission that “the early versions of work, if we can even get our hands moving, come out rough” and induce “bad feelings” in many a writer.
That is how writing is supposed to be and supposed to feel. It’s all right. I’m on track. I’m used to this. Writing feels hard and frustrating the better you get at it. The pain is almost like a badge of honor.
Once I had reassured my panicky self about that, I could see a second uplifting and confidence-inducing aspect of the writing under my nose.
That is writing no one will ever see. It’s for me. It’s for my thoughts, my vision (if you like to attach such a grand word). This type of writing is essential foundational work that I need to do the actual writing.
That page of bad writing has already sparked developmental work, by the way. I found a new name, which represents a new character and a new race. The page also includes baby steps to explore an experience that defines the protagonist, JJ. It’s progress. I may have produced bad writing, but it has a quality for the project as a whole.
Remember that without writing badly, without starting, you’ll never get to find the good writer in you. Be confident about your writing.
That’s all the writing updates for the moment. I’ll share a journalism-focused post this weekend. Next week, you can expect fall photography and words on running.
