I wrote a book. It sucked. I wrote nine more books. They sucked, too. Meanwhile, I read every single thing I could find on publishing and writing, went to conferences, joined professional organizations, hooked up with fellow writers in critique groups, and didn’t give up. Then I wrote one more book.

~ Beth Revis

Beth Revis Books Debut Author First Drafts Inspiration Persistence Publishing Writing

Awful first drafts are fine—Agree with this.If you don’t finish something, you’ll never get in the game. Just quell the voice in your head that says “Are you kidding? No one is going to want to read this drivel” and keep on going. You’re going to revise and revise and then revise again anyway.

~ Jamie Freveletti

Jamie Freveletti First Drafts Writing

Now, practically even better news than that of short assignments is the idea of shitty first drafts. All good writers write them.

~ Anne Lamott

Anne Lamott Anne Lammott Author First Drafts Write Writer Writing

Mostly writing requires massive dedication, a whole lot of time spent alone, way too much sitting, countless hours spent thinking hard, and unending and occasionally painful dedication to forming ideas and laboring over the production of sentences, paragraphs, scenes, dialogue, punctuation, and all the elements that go into writing a novel, a play, a screenplay, or a poem. When we're not writing, we're thinking, plotting, imagining, or editing, which can be far more tedious than cranking out first drafts.--Fire Up Your Writing Brain

~ Susan Reynolds

Susan Reynolds First Drafts Novel Writing Screenplay Writing Writing Writing Advice Writing Books Writing Life

It's okay to write a cliché in a first draft; it sets a marker that you can get far, far away from in the rewrites.

~ Stewart Stafford

Stewart Stafford Clichés First Drafts Originality Rewrites Rewriting Writing Writing Advice Writing Advice Process Writing Process