STL Writers Connect

I was in my dance class last week, where we were introduced to a new dance style. The moves were particularly difficult and we were told that we would just have to practice, practice, practice if we wanted to get comfortable with them. The instructor said that it is about “this” point in the class that people start dropping out because they think they will never be as good as they would like to be. Then she said, “you know, there is a saying that “anything worth doing is worth doing badly”… until you get it right. I knew who said that! It was G K Chesterton. G K Chesterton was one of the most influential writers of the 20^th century. Over the years his quote became popular to remind people that, sometimes the things that became the most rewarding were the things that were the most difficult when they were first attempted. When you first learned to ride a bicycle and you fell, did you quit, or did you get back on until you could ride.

The chances of your first writing efforts producing a New York Times bestseller are minute. That’s okay. Just let go of that frustration and have fun. Don’t strive to say it perfectly, strive to say it in the way that it feels right for you.

Just commit yourself to the joy of doing and enjoy the thrill of improving at it. And you will improve as you practice writing.
Live by the law of reasonable expectations rather than by the law of perfection. Not only is perfection stressful, it’s also boring. Imperfection evokes humor and laughter while perfection evokes stress, frustration and anger.
Growth is the distance between doing something “badly” and doing something “excellent”. Tell yourself, “I will never experience growth if I am afraid of doing something badly”!

We need to stop looking at things we get into and in the beginning do “badly” as failures. You only really experience failure if you stop trying, doing something “badly” is not failure, it’s just a part of the process! So, practice writing, practice writing, practice writing.