Okay, so you want to write things. Many things. Beautiful things! Things that seem so awesome in your head! But you have just one tiny, itty-bitty problem:

Everything you write is total, complete shit. It’s so shit you want to print it out just so you can set it on fire so nobody else will ever see it. Maybe someone told you your writing was shit. Maybe you have a bad writing habit or something that plagues you constantly (mine is typos. Horrible, horrible typos). Maybe your idea is so awesome that you’re afraid you’ll ruin it. Well, I have a awesome, wonderful news just for you. One of those secrets that people forget to share. Here it goes:

Writing crap is good for you.

You don’t believe me. Crap is crap! Writing isn’t worth it if all you’re going to write is crap, right? Wrong. Fucking wrong. Fuck that shit so hard. Fuck it until it burns. Writing crap is good for you. Crap is the fertilizer in which your ideas grow. Your shitty first draft will become a beautiful flower, even if it takes many washings to get the stink off. What is crap now can be remade into not crap later, even if that later is much, much later.

Or maybe your crap isn’t worth rewriting. Maybe it’s just best to bury it quietly, with a fond farewell or a bottle of whiskey. You know what? It still did you good to write it. Crap today will improve your writing in the future. It will! You’ll learn where your strengths are. You’ll improve your weaknesses. You’ll reuse ideas you buried, or retweak them in ways you like.

Don’t be afraid to write crap. Don’t feel bad if you think you are writing crap. Everyone writes crap. Your favorite book had a shitty first draft. Your favorite authors had bad writing days. The journalist you admire had her stories rejected. The blogger you follow left his shitty posts on the drawing board.

Everyone writes crap. Don’t let it stop you from writing at all.