Do This on the Days You Hate Your Writing

This sentiment is a good sign

One of the greatest writers ever, Franz Kafka, burned over 90 percent of his work. Some days I look at my writing and feel like pulling a Kafka. I want to throw it all out.

It all looks like complete garbage to me. Perhaps a lot of it is. Many writers say they look back on their first few years of writing and cringe. I’m still in my first few years and luckily I cringe some days.

Luckily? Yes. Cringing is a sign that my writing is improving.

Here are a few ways I’ve found to turn the occasional negativity I have for my own work into improvement as a writer.

I realize this feeling is a sign of improvement

If I thought a certain article was good before but now I think it is bad then something changed. I realize now that what changed is my own editorial and artistic standards. They are higher now.

I can now more easily identify what isn’t working in my writing. Then I can either change it or drop it. I only had a small seed of this ability when I first started writing. Now I have a well-watered sapling. Someday hopefully I’ll have a towering oak of creativity, editing prowess, and artistic sensibility. But my job now is to just keep watering that sapling.

Of course, I’m going to think some of my first articles were crap if I now have a better feel for what isn’t crappy. Hating your early work in any artistic endeavor is normal. But cut it some slack as it gave you a ride to where you are today.

This feeling is often a necessary prerequisite to artistic excellence.

“Unfortunately, writers in the depths of this “crap phase” will often wonder if it’s worth their time to continue. That struggle — that feeling that you’re wasting your time — is a sign that you’re probably on the right path. But most people quit, not realizing that nearly every writer who does excellent work went through a phase of years where they had really good taste, but they produced total crap.”-Jane Friedman

I realize I’m closing the gap between my skill and my potential

I can imagine the perfect article in my head, I just don’t have the chops to write it yet. I know how some writing from other authors has made me feel. Someday I want to write in a way to make others feel the same way. Inspired. Amazed. Like I’m sitting alone with that author and they are talking directly to me.

Ira Glass, host and producer of This American Life, said:

“All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you.

Having good taste coupled with a desire to work is the path to reaching your potential. Not loving your work means you are closing that gap between where you are and your potential.

I realize I’m now higher when standing on a pile of garbage

Where am I today compared to where I was when I started? I’m infinitely higher as a writer. I can either look at all my bad writing as a worthless waste of time, or I can look at it as a pile I’m standing on that elevates me to a level I’d never have reached without it.

Love your garbage pile of old writing. Owning a pile like this the only way any of us writers can get higher.

The larger the writing garbage pile, the better the writer.

I look up to other writers for hope

I have a few writing “heroes.” People that hover around my pinnacle of taste. If I can’t write one day, I read. I read these people.

I try to read the best writing I can. The better quality I take in, the better I’ll put out. I try to read stories that are written so beautifully they feel more like a painting than an article.

“When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth” — Kurt Vonnegut

If the best authors feel like this, then so can I. I read other writers for both inspiration from their beautiful work or camaraderie in knowing we have both felt like I do. Whenever I’m stuck or down on my writing, I read.

It’s amazing what reading can do to refill my writing tank.

“Read, read, read. Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.” ― William Faulkner

I keep writing

I never stop writing. This is the most important one. If I learned anything from all the writing articles I’ve read and authors I’ve spoken to it’s that persistence is key to being successful as a writer.

Calvin Coolidge said:

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan Press On! has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”

This is so true for writing. Keeping up through the failures, rejections, and hatred of your own writing seems to be the primary prerequisite for writing success.

Conclusion

I started today hating everything I’ve written. I wrote this article and now I’m feeling better. Sometimes just starting to write is all it takes to break out of that funk a writer can sometimes get.

I know my old crappy work has value. If nothing else, it is a stepping stone to where I am today. A little higher. A little better. So I won’t hate it. I’ll value it for providing me the opportunity to get better. I’ll respect it. I’ll be grateful for it.

Maybe you will too.

No matter what you do though, hating your garbage pile or loving it — always keep writing.

We readers and writers need you to.