#shrieks softly

THE THING IS, it’s not Bad. your most terrible, ridiculous, awful piece of writing is still better than writing that never happened at all. and lord i know it is a difficult hurdle to cross when what you’re producing and what you’re reading don’t look the same, and you can’t imagine how they ever will. but you just push forward, you know? you do a sentence a day if you have to. the only way forward is through.

don’t write going ‘THIS IS TERRIBLE I AM LETTING MYSELF BE TERRIBLE’ because that’s how you’re going to look at your writing when you do that. write with the attitude of ‘i am doing the best i can and that is enough’. write with the knowledge that every word is a step towards coming better. write and don’t reread until it’s done. 

don’t wait for the good stuff to come, and don’t set up these kind of...parameters for ‘goodness’. being good only happens by being bad, but it’s a process. it’s not like, oh i’ve written x amount of purple eyed super mage elfin princess love triangles, now i’m gonna be a Real Writer of the Good Stuff. try not to put so much pressure on yourself to be Good (which is a matter of opinion anyway, there are NYT bestsellers that i think are terrible), and give your attention more to just letting yourself have the freedom to write.

in closing, here is an excerpt of the harry potter fic i wrote one time in which he is a magical creature called an icarus (type: seraphim??) with six wings of different colours and is gay mated to draco malfoy:

Harry shifted nervously. He felt oddly like prey, with Snape and Dumbledore staring at him like that, and it wasn’t a pleasant feeling. His claws – talons, really – slid from underneath his fingernails then retracted. The raven-haired teen spared a moment of thought to muse about how odd it was, having fingernails and talons.

“Well, Albus? You dragged us in here, I believe that gives you the right to speak first,” Snape drawled, seemingly disregarding the fact that he had just spoken.

Dumbledore smiled benignly. “Oh yes, it does give me the right, doesn’t it? But not the obligation. Just pretend that I’m not here, I’m sure you two have much to say to each other.”

Harry crooned angrily, flexing his fingers and talons almost without realising it and Snape looked on the verge of spitting fire. The Headmaster himself was seemingly unconcerned as he unwrapped some sort of sweet and popped it into his mouth.

The Icarus rolled his eyes then stopped as he noticed Snape doing the same thing. The glared at each other as Harry flopped back in his seat, readying himself for the long haul.

More like a QT WEENIE