This saying has been credited to many authors and I can’t find the original. I do believe it’s true, though.

The newest member of my writing group stated she had a story she had been writing in her head, and alarms went off in my head. How can she think she’s writing if it hasn’t left her head?

Perhaps it’s fortunate I curbed my tongue. I did want her to come back. She seems like a good addition to the group.

However, I am wary of those who think they can create stories – which are made for sharing – without writing them down. A first draft is usually crap. It’s allowed to be crap. Perhaps even supposed to be crap.

That’s why re-writing and editing exist – to cure the first draft into something wonderful.

I know some first drafts are pretty amazing. I have a friend who puts my first drafts to shame. It’s not a mark of a good writer vs. a bad writer, just that our starting points are different. We both rework our manuscripts until they shine. At the end, we have styles that change our work and voices that speak to the reader. We hope they’re clear and emotionally moving.

Sometimes we succeed.

Other times we scrap a project as not worthy. It’s just part of the process. But if we’d never written a word, we’d never know. And neither would those who read our work be able to share in the story we create.

Some of these sayings are popular for good reason. Imagine a plain white sheet of paper with red dots all over it. Meaningless without the (presumably) black text underneath. Because of this, I give myself permission to make bad first drafts. I just want the story to shine through, and it might take a few tries.

I haven’t failed until I quit trying, and I count it as forward progress as long as my pages aren’t blank.